


Another Sky

by Pyrlaeon



Category: Pocket Monsters SPECIAL | Pokemon Adventures, Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pokemon - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst and Humor, Dark, F/M, Friendship, Mystery, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2020-05-19 14:37:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 72,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19359001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pyrlaeon/pseuds/Pyrlaeon
Summary: A leafeon lives in a pack surrounded by friends and free from problems until a sudden accident disturbs his peaceful life and the dream he lived. Trying to return to his former life, he is going to lose what he once was, but fulfil dreams and discover the world outside of his home. Learn its past, future, and discover himself. That's the tale of the leafeon with white leaves, the tale of Zar the White, my tale.





	1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1 'Zar'

How can I explain this? In a world where sudden tragedies are a part of everyday life? Should I speak with phrases of deeper meaning, of unexpected twist in the story, and of characters acting like heroes? But those types of characters are often mindless marionettes, simply pushed around; unconvincing and lifeless. I was never good at it, not that I really tried, but I guess that I am bored of it, of making things more important than they really are. I always focus too much on sharing important thoughts and lessons, trying to show more than I really understand, and hope that someone would find it made more sense than I did...

No, that's not the way it should be told, it should be more of "my tale", should be told as my story, but at the same time I don't want to reveal so much of my life. Perhaps it's possible though. Shown in the most attractive light I can give it but not flashy, a way which creates confusion but gives one answers; to let you truly feel it. To tell it as I would tell myself, or at least, I'll try.

But I'll start from the beginning...

* * *

In the wake of a brand new day, the sun rose, shining brightly and partially illuminating the skies with its magnificent rays. It bathed the ground with warmth, even as it still climbed into the sky, just under the horizon. The swirl of the clouds drifted lazily in the air above, completing their sluggish movements that represented a drifter in the sea's waves.

I was in the middle of a large clearing in the centre of a valley. It was one of the few quiet and peaceful places near home, which was filled with several eeveelution packs. The clearing was covered in tall grass, flowers, and other weeds; most of the plants weren't any taller than my wither.

I was lying flat on my belly in the grass sunbathing, soaking in the rays of the intense morning sun; bushes of every shape and size around me, some bearing plentiful fruits and berries, others with dark pointed leaves or wide ferns spread out. I always came here as soon as the sun began rising to start my work, which was lying here under the sun to bask in it, to be more specific.

Noon arrived sooner than I thought, quickly becoming the hottest part of the day. I felt as if the sun had pinned me to the ground; the leaves on my body were overwhelmed by the intense light. Like every other leafeon I, too, had a leaf-like tail, ears, a larger leaf curled from the top of my forehead and smaller ones hidden in between my fur. Each one was a bright green colour-however, there was a slight difference in that there was a bit of white colour at the bottom, having spread about to cover as much space as I was able to absorb in the sunlight.

The ground was moist; it likely rained last night. I was fine with that; I could easily absorb water from the soil through my paws. This, in turn, would give nutrients to my leaves. I enjoyed spending days like this when most of the days during this season were sunny.

Eventually, the sun was approaching its later stages of its journey to ascend the skies. It wasn't as hot as before anymore, which wasn't enough to adequately provide me the necessary warmth to counter the natural chill I felt from the ground. My job was to lie here, so I would, and I couldn't give up just because of the cold. Photosynthesis was a trying process, especially for specific types like myself; absorbing and gathering energy from the sun, water, minerals and carbon dioxide to make sugars, which was energizing for me. I would release some of this energy, emitting any excess quantities to my surroundings to help stimulate growth and production of nearby plants. Oxygen is also a byproduct of this process, which is also helpful for other living creatures.

Just as the orange oval of the sun was completely covered by the horizon and the night has started, I stood up. I stretched my legs, my back, moved my head left and right, then I made few circles in the air with my leaf on my forehead and tail as I stayed in one position really long, when I was done, I started a walk to my den nearby to sleep. Even if my activity wasn't very showy, I felt tired, there were differences between sunbathing for chilling out and sunbathing for work. If I was about to relax in the sun I would just lie somewhere and allowed my body absorb sun's energy on its own. When I was working, I was forcing myself to make this process much faster and now I felt its effect. My leaves were hurting, I thought that today I even exaggerated them since they seemed to be a little burned and dry, easy to crack and break. When I was about to exit the clearing I meet three umbreons entering the field who, seeing me, greeted me with nods and I answered in the same way. If there would be more leafeon in the pack I probably would also have some smaller group with whom I may share my job, but there was just me.

Just one more day and I would get some free time to do other things than work, like repair some of my social life, no one could stand the sun on the clearing too long. Well, maybe some flareon would be able, but I didn't know any with whom I would like to spend some my time. I was getting up before any other in my pack and was back after everyone returned to the dens at the end of the day.

Soon I saw the large field filled with short grass and many dug holes in the ground. Here was the centre of the pack, usually full of life, crowds of talking eeveelutions doing their tasks to keep the pack going. Each hole was an entrance to the underground home of each family of eeveelutions, young eevees were living with their parents until they evolved. Evolution was a sign that you are ready to live your own, it didn't work with everyone since there were eevees older than me just as eeveelutions much younger than me, but that was the long tradition of the pack. Nearly a year after my early evolution, I stayed secluded, my den on the edge of the field. Empty, as I hadn't found a mate just yet, and I probably won't find one anytime soon.

I hoped this night would be silent and peaceful, the last one was anything but: one of my neighbours, a young pair of glaceon and sylveon decided that they need to make their den bigger as they were expecting pups from their eggs soon. The head of the family started digging, but by mistake, he entered a den of second, old and grumpy neighbour. There was no end of loud debating whose fault it was even if it was obvious from the start. It ended only thanks to the pack leader who was strong, proud, and very annoying to me, flareon. He found a free den for the grumpy neighbour close to the stream, which he immediately accepted, since he was a vaporeon, and then gave water-type's den to the pair. Happy ending, but it was so late in the night that I had problems waking up in the morning to not be late to my job on clearing, the pack leader could be helpful, but could also be harsh.

My den was small, just enough to comfortably sleep inside, not being afraid of the rain. The typical den was much bigger than mine, having rooms to stock some food, maybe a water hole and some space for other useful eeveelutions families things, but being leafeon, I didn't need to eat, didn't mind having to walk a little to the river for water, and I was the only occupant, so I hadn't any reasons to have more than just one small room, anyway I was spending only the nights here. The interior was very simple: a few paces from the entrance was a place where I sleep, covered in dry straw, and that is all. Inside it was humid so I hoped that it would heal my leaves before morning. Just after a moment when I laid down on my (surprisingly more comfortable than normal) bed, I was asleep.

The dream was, as always, the same. It was so repetitive that I even felt bored just from being inside the dream. Being in the woods not so far away from the pack I was staying as brightly-brown slim but taller than average eevee. It was late at night, the full moon was barely visible through thick swath of clouds. After having fun with my best friend, I got lost, maybe I wasn't as afraid in this age, I felt as if the world belonged to me and there was no place I couldn't go, but I was a bit worried as I couldn't find a way back home. My friend was always better at hiding and older than me by three winters so I got used to it that I was losing in every possible game with him, but it never was making me nervous, but today he lost me very easily and completely.

On that day, he was already evolved and, as everyone who had a tendency to stay out too long at night and being good at hiding, he evolved into umbreon, blast him for that.

Why was I even trying to play hide and seek with a dark type at night?

We knew each other for quite a long time, we met because our parents were friends, later it even appeared that we are somehow related, five or six generations earlier.

I was walking for a long time. Just ahead, the forest overgrowth was mostly leafy and leaves were moist, covered in dew. I felt my legs tired, my head falling and my back hurting. Long walks never were my thing, but sprinting wasn't either. Close before the dawn, my way crossed wide in every direction with extremely thick bushes with long and narrow leaves, they were reminding me about spiky thorns and, for an unknown reason, I had a feeling that all of them were aimed directly at me. It wasn't easy to say what was their colour was since it was dark and in darkness, everything seemed to be dark, grey or even darker, but as an eevee, I started going through them without much effort. When I walked out of the opposite side of the bushes the environment around me started to look familiar, very familiar, just smaller than I had remembered. With another step forward I fell flat on my face and I fell from much higher than usual. It took me a moment to notice my new plant features, I wasn't eevee any longer but leafeon. I wasn't any longer or taller than average, but my slenderity stuck with me and created the impression of espeon's body shape with additions.

When this dream appeared the first, second and even third time, I thought that it was something good, a moment of my own happiness, a good memory that I knowingly or unknowingly wanted to see again, but as I dreamed about it, again and again, it started to worry me. Maybe there was something that I needed to see in it but I was missing every time?

I thought that it was something with my head, some illness or injury - maybe those bushes had some weird effect? That was possible too; I couldn't remember where that place was anymore. I had never found those bushes again, no matter how long I had searched for them.

When I returned, no one believed that it was me, even my own parents didn't recognise me. No one had ever seen a leafeon, and I had a feeling that they didn't understand every word I was saying. Luckily, there was one elderly vaporeon who explained to the other pokémon as well as to me what leafeon was. When I proved that I really was myself my parents were very sorry that they didn't recognise me. I was mad at them for it until I saw my own reflection. Because then, even I didn't recognise myself. I guess that seeing so many umbreons, espeons or other eeveelutions taught me to recognise them, but when I saw a completely new creature... well I needed to get used to it, but I didn't regret anything that happened.

Some of other pack members were saying that I just didn't want to tell where these bushes were because I wanted to be 'original' and the 'only one', but they quickly shut up when it appeared that my form was, frankly, useless. And no one really wanted to become 'like' me. Maybe I was weak just because I hadn't anyone who could be my teacher; a newly evolved eevee usually had an older teacher and in a few days could learn what they could do. But not me, I was still discovering my powers, very slowly, almost without any progress.

That was bad too, soon it would be a year since I'd evolved and I felt as if I was even weaker than before. And on the day of my birth; since evolution was considered as the second day of birth, I needed to show what I was capable of. I had hoped that some of the elders would be ill or at least feel ill so I could heal them, since healing was something that I learned. I also knew how to put someone to sleep by scattering some stinking dust thing from my leaves. Others said that it smelled nice, however to me, it was like smelling grass; young and wet, fresh with morning dew. All I had to show was being able to heal some small wounds (which didn't even hurt too much) and put others to sleep. I could ask someone to cut my tail and show how it slowly grew back, but I doubted that someone would want to watch that. There was still a chance that no one would examine me since there was no other leafeon so no one known what I should know. I still had a few weeks to find something more interesting to show off, but for now, it was looking bad.

I noticed that I wasn't even asleep anymore, I was just staring at the wall of my den, thinking.

I sighed. Another sleepless night lay ahead.

Do others think this much before they sleep too? Creating scenarios that didn't have a chance to happen, thinking about the meaning of life or reminiscing of what somebody said or did long ago. Maybe no one would notice if I took a nap in the clearing again. I really didn't feel responsible for my 'job' anyways.

* * *

In the morning, before everyone woke up, I went to the clearing, meeting again the same group of umbreons who were now returning to their dens. They smiled and said 'hello' and I answered in the same way. We had met like that every morning and afternoon since I evolved; every generation used to group up with themselves, so every day seemed to have a meaning, a connection. Even a single moon's difference in age was enough for us to group others as old, young or our own peers. These groups could become a whole world for us and so we were, the bunch of eevees. It was a time when a single lock of fur could make someone original and different. It was until maturity had come and painted everything grey. An irony of evolution: the point where everyone would start his own independent life made us even more similar to each other, then it pushed us into the ocean we once had been looking at from the beach, an ocean of exhaustion and worries, filling all time we once had with duties and things we just must do, leaving only moments to lift our heads above the water for a short breath and wave to the others who lifted their head before we return into covering our eyes and mouth, surrounding us in our ocean of everyday life. But even now, we were separate. Evolution had pushed us apart, and there was nothing you could do about it.

I knew what job they had, they were gathering fruits from clearing which I was stimulating by lying there, umbreons weren't usually used to it, they were for hunting, not gathering fruits. This was more of a punishment for the umbreons than a real activity but there was a reason why it needed to be umbreon or eventually sylveon. They were good to work at night when I was asleep. Everyone in the pack thought that I was extremely sensitive to plants because I am part plant, and there was some truth in that since I felt sad when I saw someone damaging nature, but it wasn't that powerful a feeling to force me to do anything.

Before evolution I was never very sensitive about plant life around me; even now I was repeating that I didn't care, but as I saw someone purposely stepping on or destroying some of nature I felt something that I wasn't sure what to name. It was similar to anger but mixed with sadness and a willingness to repair the destroyed thing. I was explaining this to myself as 'type'. The same thing that caused vaporeons to like water, espeons to be so arrogant or umbreons to insult or bite someone without any reason. My friend was umbreon and he told me that there was a great desire to do something that felt 'bad' and it was better to do it than wait until the desire grew into something that he might really regret. Umbreons were usually dealing with their darker feelings between each other since only they were active during the night and the rest were sleeping away in their dens.

I entered the clearing and went to my favourite spot in the centre. I walked a few circles in the place where I wanted to rest and I lied down. And just like the day before, I spread my leaves above me as much as I could. But I wasn't trying to make the stimulating process faster, I guess you could say I was just 'eating'. Not having 'normal' food has its advantages, it didn't need to be chased and I could have it while I was doing something completely different, and it was also unlimited. Maybe the clouds could block a bit of sunlight but nonetheless, I could take as much as I needed. Sometimes I would remember how things taste when I was an eevee, but these days I couldn't imagine myself 'eating' something different than the sun's rays, absorbing soil from the ground and sipping some water from time to time, I still could do it but it wasn't the same pleasure as it once was. The only effect of my diet was my sometimes smaller or larger leaves depending on how much of the sun's energy I absorbed.

But I would lie if I said that I was living only on photosynthesis, sometimes I needed to take something 'normal', even against myself, it was the kind of hunger which I wasn't able to ignore. Maybe the sun wasn't giving me everything that I needed.

My job could look important and worthwhile but honestly, it was completely unnecessary. No one really liked to eat plants; some of the fruits from here were occasionally sweet, but after I tried them once, my stomach ended up rolling for days. And the leaves were bitter and tasted gross.

Still, I was just doing that so no one could say that I wasn't doing anything when others had their tasks to do. That was our leader's idea; make everyone work somewhere in the pack. He was a little obsessed with his power as a ruler and was irritated when he saw other eeveelutions lazing about. After all, there was always much to be done around here.

While I was lying in the meadow I could see through the tall grass; some patrolling flareons were coming over. I could hear their harsh breaths from afar; the bright colours of their coats warmed your body just by looking at them, always sending excess heat out into the air. However, they looked like they were enjoying the heat, passing time with a discussion and looking around almost arrogantly. They would warm the rest of the pack during winter or melt some ice if it was needed, but there were only sunny days right now and they needed to play the guardian role. To be honest, it was very rare that they needed to really guard our pack from something anyways.

I couldn't hear their steps any longer, they had gone out of my hearing range. I was able to catch from afar a splash of the water though: probably some vaporeons who tried to catch fish or eevee who tried to learn how to swim.

Just another day here, in real eeveelutions utopia.

I saw that the clearing was entered by an older looking sylveon, keeping his feelers close by him. Near him, a vaporeon was set in a strange pose, like he was frozen but there was no ice.

Why this sylveon was chosen to keep other eeveelutions in good health always amazed me, since every time he had to heal someone he would come to me to ask for help. But he promised me that if I helped him, someday he would tell me what his feelers were made of. I personally thought that it was some kind of flesh and muscle, as it couldn't be any thin membrane like vaporeon's fins as it could move much more than fins.

"Hello, I..." he started. As always he was trying to involve me in conversation, trying to not let me think that he came here only for my, honestly, absolutely free help and I usually used that to pass some time. Paralysed pokemon couldn't hurry us as they were, well... paralysed. But we quickly ran out of the topics we talked about since neither he nor I were very interesting pokemon with lives full of stories and now he was only repeating himself.

"Yes yes, paralysis isn't it? Let me guess, another jolteon tried to 'help' with fishing? I'm surprised that you brought just the one then," I cut him off by examining the vaporeon.

"Actually, no. He fought with a jolteon. I'm not sure what the whole purpose of their altercation was because he didn't say anything," Sylveon said with his deep, monotone voice. Fights weren't very popular in our pack's everyday life. Training and sparring to improve oneself was fine. But jolteon never fought with vaporeon as the former had an advantage over the latter, as obvious as it was. Therefore, the winners would have been decided before the fight even began. It was also risky and dangerous to the vaporeon to engage in any bouts with the electric types.

I knew from first-hand experience how type disadvantages can hurt. Extinguishing burning leaves was very difficult to do on your own, and they grew back slower than usual after an afflicted injury. One time when I was walking along, I was unluckily in the line of "fire" when a nearby Flareon had sneezed, due to an illness he had, which set my tail aflame. We never fought one another, but the experience had been excruciatingly painful nonetheless.

"Okay leave him here for a while, he'll be fine," I answered, standing up from my spot to suggest he should put the vaporeon down in the grass, I didn't want him to put him on some of the more touchy plants as he had more than once in the past.

"Take care," he shouted, walking back in the direction he came from and happy that he just left his problem behind, I escorted him with my sight. When he disappeared between the bushes I sighed and turned to the vaporeon lying on the ground (not by choice) to meet his blank stare as he was looking straight at me.

"What? I don't need to like everyone here," I answered to his gaze which didn't change a bit. Feeling uncomfortable I walked around him avoiding his stare. I never actually 'learned' any healing abilities, it was more like 'discovering', in that I just knew them. It came to me on the day of evolution naturally and I didn't even need to put too much of my focus into using them, it seemed that healing paralysis was somehow connected to my natural aroma. Soon the vaporeon snapped out of its position and laid flat on the grass in a far more comfortable position than before. Being paralysed, he wasn't moving, but staying like that was far from 'resting'.

"Ouch," he sighed as he stretched, still lying. "Thanks."

"Was it really worth a fight with an electric type?" I asked him as I noticed he was looking better than before.

"It wasn't me who started it," the vaporeon defended himself as he stood up and looked at me curiously. His continued gaze on me made me feel uncomfortable again. Feeling perturbed, I thought to voice my concerns aloud.

"What?"

"Oh, nothing. It's just I've never seen a leafeon before, I only heard that there was one in the pack," he answered sheepishly. "You were speaking weirdly."

"Like what?" I asked, but I already knew that there was something with me since evolution.

"I don't know. Different, it is hard to understand you. Just like, well, not an eeveelution," he judged and stood up. He was a little taller than me, but vaporeons were usually bigger than others from the pack. Still, he looked like he could be at least two years older than me, even though I knew he evolved only last spring.

"Uhh okay. I guess that you have a lot to do of... whatever you were doing before" I said quietly. There was no chance that our almighty flareon leader missed giving someone without anything to do yet another job.

"Right, I forgot, see you later," he said and in hurry followed sylveon's steps out of my clearing. I actually doubted that we would meet again; the 'pack' was, in reality, many connected groups of other smaller packs. I was living in the 'Middle' one, where east and west of our small world meet each other. Every smaller pack had its own leader, but above them, all was the one most important leader. The small groups hadn't many differences between each other, some of them, for example, had more vaporeons if it was close to the water. The furthest group was high in the mountains. The mountain was visible from the 'middle' and to get there you'd need to walk for two days. That group was considered 'traditional' since it only contained glaceons who left their dens only during the winter. Glaceons could live in a hot place like this clearing, but they didn't like it and it always took some effort for them to cool themselves down.

* * *

For the rest of the day nothing which could be considered as unusual happened; I napped a few times and walked around the clearing when I became bored of lying in the grass. Today I was just waiting for nightfall, tomorrow I had a free day, so today I planned to spend an evening with some friends. As my days usually passed by fast, today felt like the longest day in my life. I always felt like that when I was waiting for something.

But it finally it came, evening. I walked out of the clearing and as usual, I headed to the centre where there were numerous dens. Today I was earlier than usual, so I had to face the crowds of eeveelutions walking here on the invisible pathways of the dens. It was an instinct everyone in the pack had, knowing the routes between the many underground cave entrances. It wasn't possible to see what every pokemon was doing here in this mix of colours, but one thing was certain, it was really loud here. The buzzing of multiple conversations, yells, someone counting, yet another was singing and there were even lighting, flames and torrents of water flying in the sky; after all, presenting your abilities was a way to find a possible mate.

Another 'peaceful' day in the 'Middle'. I started making my way through the crowds, and while most pokemon ignored me, I got few stares from passing pack members; it wasn't possible to walk through this crowd unnoticed. I was answering with an artificial smile even if I didn't like being observed, I don't think anyone ever did. Some of them were just looking at me curiously as if they were seeing me for the first time in their lives, others looked at if they knew me but couldn't remember why, I probably healed them in the past. Others were looking at me with disgust, pointing at the leaves growing on my body. But that wasn't anything wrong with that at all, differences between eeveelutions were quite typical. Usually for espeons it was weird that jolteons had no tail; however for jolteons it was weird to have a long tail like a vaporeon had, so I could understand that the leaves on my body could look bad in someone's opinion.

Finally, I arrived on the opposite side of the centre, here there were far less 'eons'. I already could see my destination: a long lagoon created by the narrow but fast flowing stream of water. There were also some smooth, flat rocks sticking out of the grass; perfect to lay on during a sunny day.

It was a place of meetings and rest. At the beach, I didn't have to deal with crowds like in the centre, but there also wasn't a quiet, peaceful space. When I walked on the beach of the lagoon, I turned in the opposite direction of the stream flow's direction. Soon I arrived at a fallen tree full of cracks and holes, leaves lost from the long, tangled and naked branches spread in the water. I laid in the shadow of the forest's wall near the fallen tree. I liked staying in the sun, but I already could see that my leaves had had enough of the bright rays. They had become hard and dry. Even if they weren't sensitive enough to feel their pain, if someone touched them I didn't want to see them crack.

I saw that the sky had turned partly cloudy but they weren't dark and heavy clouds which could bring a storm. They were like white and light puffs or foam in the ocean of bright blue.

"You are late," said a grumpy, harsh voice behind me. As I turned my head I saw a midnight black umbreon exiting one of the biggest holes in the fallen tree. He was tall and sinewy, with unnaturally coloured shining rings on his body. I hadn't had any problems with recognising one umbreon from another but this one was very easy to recognise because of his blue rings and yellow eyes.

"Hey, how long were you in that hole?" I greeted him.

"Eh, I hoped that you would, at last, be surprised, Leaf," he said in much nicer tone now. Leaf wasn't my real name but because of being only one leafeon I got a lot of nicknames like leaf or flower and many other plant related titles.

"Did you ever find anyone who you could scare, Serge?" I asked.

"You would be surprised how many... but say, what were you doing last time, I heard that Sogot found you something interesting to do," he buttonholed me.

"Yes, he finally found something. That isn't much to talk about, my job is pretty simple. I'm just gathering sunlight and giving it to the environment. Sometimes Cyrus brings someone to heal, and that is all it is, from morning to night," I explained.

"Cyrus? Is he that sylveon?" he asked and I nodded. He continued, "Soon it will be a full year since you evolved, how do you feel about that form? I remember that you had different plans."

"It's fine, most days are okay, but if there isn't much sun then I get hungry at night. Technically, I could eat food, but with these teeth, it's not easy. Winter is also hard to survive through, this fur," I pointed at myself "doesn't completely warm me, I am freezing during cold nights even in the season of the sun."

"Yes I remember, you were glued to almost every flareon in your reach then," laughed Serge, reminding me.

"It doesn't produce any heat!" I said a little irritated. "It's more like a decoration, it's even preventing me from overheating so I can be in the sun much longer. Yours is the opposite. I'm almost jealous."

"Okay okay, calm down. I was kidding," Serge said nudging me.

"Liss won't come today?" I asked as some time passed and I still didn't see the female glaceon who was usually following us.

"No, don't you remember that glaceons spend the summer in the mountains? All of them," he reminded me. "But there are also advantages of it, we can look at 'whatever' we want," smiled the blue-ringed umbreon as he ran his vision across the lagoon.

"Wait until I repeat this to her," I answered also laughing. But it was true, from here we had a view of the almost whole lagoon, including the group of swimming females.

"Don't you even dare," he almost growled at me, again changing his tone to harsh and cold. It always amazed me how fast his expression could change from friendly to almost feral. I wasn't afraid of him but this always made me feel twitchy; my ears stood up, ready for anything.

"Okay, I won't," I breathed and it seemed that my answer pleased him since he returned to his friendly statement. I waited for him to continue, but for a second my thoughts drifted away. What if his sudden changes of mood were caused by his dark-type nature? He probably just woke up and didn't have time to defuse himself on someone or something. It wouldn't be the first time when I would have to face it, but now I wasn't in a mood for his bites or insults.

"So, which do you prefer now? Still jolteons?" asked Serge, quieting my worry and nodding his head to a female group's way, which, unfortunately, wasn't paying any attention to us. I actually never preferred jolteons but it was quite a rare eeveelution and Serge wasn't friends with any so he couldn't shame me on my choice. Just imagining if I said that I, for example, prefer umbreons. Serge knows a lot of them; one maybe two nights later and there wouldn't be an umbreon alive who didn't hear about it. He could be silent with my secrets since he was my best friend, but not this kind of secret.

"For now yes, but I've never seen a female leafeon, so you know, it can change," I replied. Water and electricity weren't a good combination, so there were no jolteons close to the river.

"Anyone 'special' on your mind?" Serge asked me suggestively.

"No, and you?" I returned his question.

"You may say that I have even more than that on my mind," he praised.

"No kidding, who is that 'unlucky' one?" I had a feeling that he asked me about my preferences only to have a chance to boast himself. It wasn't the first time when he asked me about it.

"Oh, you know her pretty well, you even mentioned her today."

"Really, you and Liss!? You two were always first to fight each other from the... well, as long I can remember," I said reminiscent, and he laughed. "But wait, if this is middle of the summer and glaecons are far away..."

"Yes, it was at the beginning of the winter; you were too busy trying to survive the weather and didn't notice anything," he cut me off.

"Sorry, but I could die if I hadn't been 'busy with that'," my irritation rose, yes I was taking the winter very bad but it didn't have to be mentioned over and over again.

"You don't need to yell Zar," spoke a new soft female voice. Hearing my name I turned my head to left and saw a graceful and slender espeon walking to us. She was another friend, maybe not as much as Serge, because we didn't know each other that long, but long enough to know not to be misled by her lavender coat's extremely attractive appearance. Hidden under that eye-catching look was her sharp and intelligent character. She was one of the youngest evolved eevee in the history of the pack; she evolved before her second winter when normally, first evolutions would happen when eevees had been through six or seven winters. I heard some rumours that her parent was feeding her with man-made food. It is said that pokemon raised by humans were growing faster, bigger and lived longer. Our flareon leader was an example of that.

Wild pokemon usually nurtured hatred toward domestic pokemon but this flareon fought for respect and a position for himself. The way to become the supreme pack's leader was brutal, he needed to fight and finally kill the earlier leader to take his place. It was supposed to prove his determination and strength, later he needed to find the power to make others follow him, but there was still a risk that the rest of the pack would just tear his body apart if they decide that pack can't achieve anything positive with him as a leader. I hadn't lived long enough to know who was the earlier leader since he died long before my birth.

...but why had thinking of Cera, that espeon, make me wonder about it?

Anyway, even if she was tall, she wasn't tall enough to say that she was using any stimulants or human's things, just natural items. How could she even get these things in the wilderness? But her living age, that was hard to tell. Evolution was considered as being born again because there were so many things changing. Not only appearance but also character, sometimes too much would change to even say that it was still the same pokemon. But previous experiences and memories didn't disappear. Everyone lived a similar length of their lives around here, so if she had a shorter life as an eevee then me, she would then have a longer life as an espeon then I had as a leafeon. In the end we would still have lived to a similar age, considering 'first' birth.

"Hello Cera, how are you?" I greeted her. I knew that she was talented in using her psychic abilities and could read what I had in mind, but she didn't use this advantage; she believed that the mind was private space.

"I am fine, I just woke up," she answered shortly and layed down to my left, on the opposite side than was Serge. I guessed that because of their type difference they didn't like each other too much, but also because she never was very social; it was actually rare that she would meet with anyone. But I needed to admit that lately, her behaviour was slowly changing.

"Funny, since I also just woke up," Serge commented smiling.

"How surprising," she answered to umbreon. "I was sleeping only because of the result of Sogot's request, he asked, no... required from me to use my psychic and learn what everyone is thinking! He didn't know about something called other pokemon's privacy which I am trying to respect. As much as I can obviously." she spoke very angrily, her tail waving furiously. Even the red gem on her forehead started to glow. "So maybe I should start with you two, what are you currently thinking?"

"Uh, I thought that he wanted you to do it by psychic," I said unsurely.

"That fucking human's pariah wanted that, but I don't want to do it!" she growled. She was one, if not greater adversary to the domestic raised pokemon, maybe it was caused by rumours about her fast evolution? "Imagine if every espeon was reading the mind of everyone around, you wouldn't have any secrets or thoughts like the ones Serge has at this moment, but I don't even need to use psychic to know what he is thinking." That made Serge look in another direction, which was once again towards the group of swimming pokemon.

"You don't need to worry, he is with Liss now," I felt weirdly speaking about my friend in the third person when he was just next to me. "But yes I would be upset if someone could know what I'm thinking in my head."

I didn't have much to hide, but more than once thought about myself as mentally unstable; not because of things what I was doing but thinking.

There weren't many espeon in the pack, which was dominated mainly by flareons, vaporeons and umbreons, but they were always giving off a feeling of worry. Cera, even as one of the youngest espeon, plus her years as an eevee, was one of most powerful psychic types in the pack and could quite easily do things like taking control of someone's mind and make them sing or jump, making objects fly, or even learn what someone was thinking currently, yesterday or even last winter. She presented it during her ability presentation which I had a chance to see, vaporeon, who she asked to be an object of her presentation, didn't even know that anything like this had happened.

If elements were allowed in the fight with the leader than she could probably even win, but it wasn't; the rules stated that it had to be fangs versus fangs so advantages or disadvantages of the type weren't that important.

But even possessing such great psychic power, she stayed 'normal'. She wasn't showing off what she could do, her presentation was the only time when she'd showed some of her potential. That again made me wonder what I could show at my presentation. I didn't need to make anything close to her psychic abilities or destructive dark power which Serge showed at his exam.

Maybe this trick with my cut tail won't be that bad?

"Anyway, I came here to relax, not whine to you two about my problems," she said now much calmer and softer. "Zar, could you use the same thing you use to heal paralysis?"

"I really wish I could but I recently overexposed my leaves in the sun and now they are very dry. I can't do anything," I explained, showing that they were really dry and brittle. Seeing that, she grimaced and turned her head to the water and her eyes glowed. After a moment from the river floated to us, a bubble of clear water.

"It does not work that way. Drinking water is helpful but I am not thirsty, they just need a while to rest," I said, guessing that she wanted me to drink.

"Shh, I planned something different," she said. Now the bubble of water was floating straight above me and slowly fell down. But surprisingly, my leaves absorbed all of it, becoming heavier and darker.

"What have you done?" I asked, concern lacing my voice. My leaves weren't dry any longer, but also it wasn't their natural state to have so much water in them.

"I just 'convinced' your leaves to absorb this water, now can you use them?" she spoke nicely.

"Yes I can," I confirmed. I could just imagine how much dew would cover me in the morning, I just hoped that I wouldn't change my den into a swamp.

"So what you were doing today?" Cera asked after the air was filled with the odour of grass, which visibly calmed her down. I actually couldn't understand how they could enjoy it, it was the air... exhaled from my body with a grass aroma.

"I woke up, ate something and came here. That's all," answered Serge.

"What were you eating?" I asked curiously but I could already guess that it was some meat.

"These new water pokemon which appeared lately in the river, they look almost like magikarp," he explained. "If I had to comment about them, I'd say they're heaven in the mouth, hell in the ass. So I'm not sure if I liked them or regret eating them."

"You could save us from your comment," Cera grunted with distaste as she rolled onto her side.

Serge was always quite direct when it came to a conversation with him, but I liked him for it. I could always depend on that he would be honest with me, with everyone, even if it would be just his dark typing kicking in.

So there I was, a weakling with two powerful pokemon as friends, once equal to them, or at least to Serge before he evolved; now I couldn't even get close to their possibilities. I felt lucky that I managed to get along with them in our younger years, who knows if they would even notice me if I would try to meet them now. They were actually the only pokemon in the pack whose help I could always depend on since my parents weren't living in the 'Middle' or any other part of the utopia. They decided that they had the world to see and they went to do it, another reason could be that they didn't want to agree to the new leader's rules and just when they weren't responsible for me they became 'free'. I sometimes felt sad about it...

My thoughts were disturbed by loud snoring, but it was the snoring of many mouths, echoing and coming from many directions. As I looked around I saw that Cera and Serge were deep in sleep.

"How you can sleep again, you just woke up!" I snarled but then I notice that my friends weren't the only one asleep but every eeveelution in my view range was lying unconscious. It took me a moment to understand what just happened; I still was exhaling my odour by instinct, not even thinking about it, and I changed it from healing to sedative effect.

I stood up and ran to the centre of the pack which I was passing through earlier, checking how far it went. It wasn't windy today but I wasn't sure how long I had done it. That was when I saw what really worried me, because I found out that everyone here was asleep as well.

"Oh fuck," I cursed and gulped. Putting pokemon to sleep during their rest time wasn't a really bad thing but putting the whole pack to sleep would cause me some repercussions, I just hoped that Sogot would be in good mood and go easy on me.

But to make things worse I saw the unnaturally big flareon lying just like the others on the ground, his size and muscular body didn't leave any doubts who it was.

"I am doomed."


	2. Ch2 'Fire and Rain'

**Chapter 2: Ch2 'Fire and Rain'**

* * *

Ch2 'Fire and Rain'

"Calm down he won't kill you for that," Cera said as calmly as she could. Right now we were in my den, but being in my place, all three of us weren't very comfortable; it was cosy, but tight. A few moments ago we talked with the jolteon who Sogot like to use in the role of a messenger. The message from the pack leader Sogot was simple, he was awaiting me in his cave. His invitation was not really an invitation, more of command really, but I couldn't force myself to stand up and go to him. On the other paw, making him wait could make my situation even worse.

"Remember that most of the pack enjoyed this nap. Sogot maybe will be angry and yelling at you but it is just him, nothing that would injure you," Serge cheered me, but his umbreon tone sounded vaguely threatening to me. Even though I knew him for so long, it was sometimes hard for me to recognise what emotion was hidden under the mask of his dark type.

But they didn't know how much Sogot and I didn't like each other. He already thought about me as... unnecessary, he was aware of my very critic opinion about him and there was one more problem which I actually shared with Serge. It was friendship with Cera. Sogot wanted to get her attention and because we were closest to Cera, he thought of us as competition, even if none of us ever thought about becoming more than a friend.

Cera had her tempting virtues but pack rules wouldn't allow to change our relationship; a mated pair could only have strength similar to each other. Strong with strong, weak with weak. Even if I didn't want to agree to it, I was in the second group. Not that I didn't have strength, I wasn't that bad really, but in the strength of my abilities, I was far behind.

"It is almost morning, I think you should not waste any more time," Serge said as he looked outside. I sighed but nodded, I needed to face him and there won't be any way to avoid this.

"Okay, I am going," I said and stood up.

"We will be waiting here, jolteon said that he wants to see only you and we won't cause any problems," Cera spoke and Serge almost contradicted her, but after he couldn't find any argument he remained silent.

I walked out of my den just when the sun appeared on the horizon and my leaves, because of how much water Cera put in them earlier, started intensively producing dew. Shortly after I was very wet. There was always some dew on my leaves in the morning but today it was as if I had walked in the rain.

It wasn't long until I arrived at the entrance of the cave, the entrance lit up from the inside by red light.

"Let's see what you prepared for me," I whispered and entered the cave.

* * *

"Zar, the one and only leafeon. The pokemon who caused... the last event," Sogot spoke deep, his reverberant and strong voice echoing from the high dome ceiling of the leader's underground rock den. It had been chiselled into the stone many years ago for the first pack leader, and was passed on since. The sound returned and made a trembling and droning noise in my ears, shrilling my mind and piercing my heart, followed by a rasping breath from a flareon of gigantic size.

I was in one of his rooms, in the room where everyone who wanted to meet with our leader would go. They would wait here see Sogot, the highest ranked leader, the strongest pokemon known to the pack; a defender, a ruler, a champion and even considered by some to be a small god in the body of a mortal. The entrance was lit up by a crackling fire in the centre of the broad and round room, but also by the flames which Sogot was keeping lit on his tail. He was walking, wandering around as if he was in a beautiful garden instead of this room. But he sped up, from a stroll to a brisk pace, moving from wall to wall in silence. The fire already was making me feel uncomfortable, I was weak to it and the view of dancing flames consuming what was left from the wood at the centre made me feel anxious, a great desire to just go out, escape, get myself far away from it was growing, but the flames on flareon's tail were even worse. They were much bigger, hotter and brighter, almost blinding, every time when Sogot was making his turn he waved his tail as if he wanted to throw them at me, to turn me into dust, to burn me alive, and his eyes were just like these flames. I saw in them hatred which I couldn't understand.

I was sitting close to one of the walls opposite to the exit of the room. The floor was cold and dry, the chill was another one of my weakness but this one I couldn't avoid. My teeth were rattling and I felt colder by the minute, my body shivering, screaming internally and he was still walking. Looking at my curled but trying to be proud body, making this moment longer and longer, like a hunter who is cornering his prey waiting for a moment to jump and rip its neck apart. That was how I felt, surrounded by one person, afraid of what he would say; he was pinning me down with his personality, overwhelming me with his power, making me feel smaller and smaller. But there was something more, something I didn't know and something that would be terrible and unavoidable for me. I saw it when I was looking at him and he was taking pleasure from my suffering. He was walking, his aura feeling so unstoppable and merciless, step after step, rhythmically pattering, and his paw was going down and shuffling and going back up-

But then he stopped and turned straight to me. I felt my muscles clench, my heart stop, my mind fill with a void. It was good that I was sitting, because if I wasn't I might have passed out.

"Highly critical about me and my position as leader, absolutely useless to the pack existence, not able to do any self-defence whatsoever," He started slowly, closing in on me and looking down at me from above. Now I could really see how unnaturally big he was; how someone could think that Cera used any of human's stimulant if there were eeveelutions like Sogot in the pack? "And now also a saboteur, who knows what your true reasons for the attack were? Did you steal something? Smuggled anything by without witnesses? You keep saying that you didn't do anything but you are known as a liar,  _'only one'_. What lies lay behind the story of your evolution? How it is possible that someone as weak as you have friends as powerful as eeveelutions like Cera? There are rules leafeon, weaklings stay with weaklings, strong eons stay with strong eons, what is your power that keeps Cera's eye from everyone else? What kept her eyes from me!?" he roared.

What did he mean by that? Cera had her eyes on me? Maybe I was in some danger and she wanted to keep me safe? The other possibility wasn't possible, no, not her, not in that way.

"Uh, maybe because you are..." I started mumbling but I resisted saying ' a human's freak'; I could be angry and bitter, but it would make my situation even worse, not to mention the way which Sogot was going made me really scared. I wasn't lying but I also didn't know how I could convince him of that, I seemed to already be on his bad side anyways.. The knowledge that Sogot wanted Cera didn't surprise me; it was natural that the strongest male was taking the strongest female, but Cera obviously didn't want that. Sogot completely was ignoring every pack tradition due to his background, he didn't know it of course, so Cera also said that she won't care about it. Sogot was too proud to learn tradition; he tried and still was trying to force Cera to become his mate by giving her too many duties; like the latest request as well, he was also conflicting them with her morals. But even if he did follow the tradition which told us how to pair, he was at a losing position since there needed to be agreement from both sides; he didn't want to agree with that part. "... not in her eeveelution type." I finally mumbled.

"Or maybe they know what power are you hiding... That's why they kept with you isn't it, that's why you stayed friends for all these days isn't it?" he burst and spun around, his burning tail swiping inches above my head causing me to feel the heat and impulsively jump backwards, just to almost meet the stone wall behind me.

"Not everyone cares about other pokemon's strength, they stay because..."

"Because of what?!" he erupted and turned to me again. Flames on his tail became taller and hotter. "You are a selfish, sullen, weak half-plant. Why would they stay, for a gulp of your dew or a nice smell? That is bullshit."

_Hey! No one drinks my dew._

I remained silent after seeing his rage, directing my vision to the floor. I was very angry at him, who did he think he was, yelling at me in this way. My friends, my business, my weakness, my problems, he had no right to speak of any of it. No one needed to work to live, the pack functioned long before he appeared and will exist long after he faded away, but I wouldn't see that. I looked up into his angry eyes, but now mine was also filled with rage how could he call me selfish, him, the most arrogant pokemon that existed on these grounds. I wanted him... I wanted him dead. No! How could I think that? He was yelling at me but how I could want to kill him? This situation was suddenly making me very tired, or maybe it was because of the stress, perhaps even both? I hadn't slept well since two days ago, it could be a reason behind this, it had to be; how could I wish for someone else's death so easily? Maybe I spent too much time with Serge and he shared with me some of his darker desires. I never thought this way before. I noticed that Sogot started speaking to me again but I missed the first few words.

"...w you will be helping in training and you will be fighting with EVERYONE who will come, I don't care if they're jolteon, espeon, or flareon, I don't care how much stronger they are than you, you will be doing your best. If not, I will personally assist in your training, using elements as well. Call your two friends over to me, wherever they're waiting for you. Dismissed." He said briskly and almost instantly stopped paying any attention to me. I didn't dare to ask him to repeat.

Slightly confused, I slowly rose and walked out of the cavern. So, I would be a punching bag. Great, that was fucking great. And he said that I would be fighting even flareons? That was dangerous! However, if I tried anything, Sogot would fight me personally and he is also a flareon, which would make it as good as a death match for me.

"Ah fuck it," I breathed quietly and focused only on walking through the forest; everything was still wet like me from the morning dew, sparkling of sunlight as if every leaf had hundreds of small shining stars clinging to it. Sogot's cave was only a little further than the river, a short walk from the centre, so it wasn't long before I stood on the bank of the river and turned right, to the shallows. Strolling next to the river, I found the shallows and started going through the narrow river, my paws halfway emerged in the cold, crystal clear water. The river's flow was calm today so I passed quite easily. When I stood at the opposite bank of the river I instinctively shook my body, rapidly losing the remains of my morning dew. Without all of this water in my leaves, I felt much better and far lighter; my leaves once again were waving freely in every breeze as if they were lighter than the air.

I could already see the crowd of eeveelutions busy with whatever they were doing, but since it was still morning, the crowd was much calmer than usual. Without any problems, I arrived at the entrance to my den and found my two friends in the middle of a conversation about the decor of some den, probably mine. They were just outside my den, waiting at the doorway, and I came up from behind them, surprising both of them.

"Thanks for waiting, I'm back but now he wants you two in his cave," I greeted them, interrupting their discussion.

"For what?" Cera asked, looking irritated.

"He didn't say, just that he wants to meet with you and Serge," I repeated.

"Okay, if he ordered it then we must go. I want to get it over with so let's hurry," Serge said, turning towards the direction I came from.

I sat down next to the entrance of my den, deciding to wait for them. The day was bright and sunny right now, but already I could see some thick, dark clouds slowly covering the ocean blue sky from afar. Even though the sun was high, the moon was still faintly visible, an incredible sight. The sun was always blinding; a great ball of light, causing pain to your eyes. But the moon, I could look at it without a second thought. Now when I focused on it, I could see the dark and slightly blue craters on its silver plate. As I looked at it longer and longer, I saw more and more details of the unequal terrain of this planet's orbiting skies as they flowered. It made me realize how small we were in this world, and how close to us things which we did not understand were, in our reach. So insignificant I felt, compared to the moon, to the sky, even my problems seemed like nothing. What would it mean if I burned to ashes tomorrow, if Sogot yelled, if even the whole pack disappeared? The moon would still be in the sky, and the world would keep going. My deep thoughts about the meaning of life were disturbed when the dark clouds finally covered the moon, and I felt the first drop of rain and heard the dull crackle of thunder from afar.

"Maybe I should have evolved into umbreon since I like to stare at the moon for so long?" I wondered, entering my home as I didn't want to become wet for a second time today.

_Maybe I shouldn't talk to myself? It isn't sane._

I guessed that even if Serge and Cera end their visit in leader's cave they also would try to avoid the rain and hide in their dens. Cera's home was almost in the centre, her den had a lot of rooms and a few levels deep into the ground but wasn't built by her. Serge's place wasn't at the edge of the pack like mine but also wasn't in the centre, he dug his own den a long time ago, but lived in it for not very long; Sogot couldn't accept how the pack was looking and had decided on a plan to change it. The idea was to place the strongest eeveelutions in the middle and the weakest at the edge. I dug my home three winters after this. And now I regretted that I made it so small. Even being as far as I could from the entrance the rain still could reach me.

I moved to put my flank towards the entrance and put up my tail to hide from the splashing water; my tail was a great shield against water. It wouldn't get wet since it had no fur on it and it was broad, helpful to hide behind it, besides I had few nerves in it so I didn't even feel the rain hitting it right now. Lying like that I saw that there was a chewed stick lying just before me, I guessed that Serge brought it here when he was waiting with Cera for me. I judged that it was a good stick for him but not for me, I didn't have a jaw as strong as his.

The quiet and monotonous sound of the rain outside made me sleepy and because of the last night I completely wasn't sleeping I wasn't resisting to it for long.

* * *

Two things woke me up: I was inconceivably hungry and I was in half sunk in water. As I opened my eyes I saw that my den had changed to the... hole filled with water. It must have rained for a long time for that to happen. Now I really regretted that I didn't have another room or level where I could hide.

Not having many options I turned to the exit and walked outside, being met by heavy rain. Still using my tail to cover me from the water, I started going into the direction of the centre, wondering: should I go to Cera or Serge now? Theoretically, Cera's den was closer and Serge could be asleep now since he was nocturnal. But was it was a day or night now? It was dark as if it was night but it could be caused by clouds, was it possible that I slept a whole day away? That would explain my hunger, but I just felt as if it wasn't more than an hour or two.

Because of the current water level, the ground had changed into a field of slippery mud. Connected to the fact that I was almost blind in the dark, my walk was incredibly hard. I was slipping, stumbling and getting dirtier with every step. Suddenly my front paws sunk into the mud so deep that I met the ground with my face.

"Blah!" I spat trying to clean my mouth from the mud but it didn't help much. Spewing and cough I started to shaking off of the mud, even vaporeon wouldn't enjoy this rain, or maybe they would? Even if I didn't see very much in the dark, I had no problems with my hearing and didn't hear a sound. That would mean that I was the only one outside, but I really didn't want to be. From afar I heard dull thunder rolling through the landscape at a slow pace, spreading itself out.. That made me decide to go to Cera; a fear of thunder was natural for everyone, and even if jolteons could make some lightning bolts, it wasn't even close to being compared to the powerful natural electrostatic discharges between the ground and atmosphere. As if following the thunder, from the same direction from which I heard it started to blow very strong wind making it impossible to keep my leaf-tail umbrella, and my tail along with any other leaf on my body was now just chaotically waving like the trees around me.

I should have been close to Cera's den right now, 'should' because I couldn't see where I exactly was but I didn't see any trees nearby so I was somewhere in the centre of the clearing. Depending on memory only, I turned a little to the right and for the second time, I lost the ground under my paws and fell down. This time I didn't hit head first into the mud but into a transparent violet bubble. I didn't even stand up when the bubble blinked and disappeared and I ended up falling down once again, meeting dry ground this time for a change. I noticed that the bubble appeared once again covering the 'entrance'.

"I thought that you knew where the entry was and wouldn't try to enter through a window," said soft and slightly sleepy voice from my right and when I looked into voice direction I saw that at the end of the underground room was Cera. I couldn't see her clearly because of the duskiness but I saw that fur from her ears was very dishevelled, going in every possible direction but not into the direction in which it usually was set. I guessed that she slept on her flank and this was the effect of it.

"Hi, sorry but I was kinda lost," I answered sheepishly. "But what is that?" I asked, pointing at the violet sphere in the 'window'.

"It is a psychic barrier, I'm using it to prevent water from going inside," she explained as if it was as obvious as that the sky was blue, water was wet or jolteons eccentric.

"You keep it up while you sleep?" I was amazed by the usefulness of this thing.

"Yeah, it is quite easy actually but I wasn't sleeping, or at least not when you landed on it. It was easy to foresee that heavy rain makes your den... uninhabitable. I just wasn't sure to who you would decide to go to, me or Serge. So I woke up a while ago, since it is middle of the night right now."

_If it was so easy to foresee then why she didn't put another violet thing in the entrance of my den? I wouldn't need to go to someone at all._

"Once again sorry," I apologised and tried to stand up but a powerful force pushed me to the ground.

"No no no, you will not walk around here with all this mud on you, let me clean you," Cera demanded and not waiting for my answer made her eyes shone. Whole mud just flew up from me, created a ball in size of my head and flew outside through the same hole from which I came. "I guess you are hungry since you missed a whole day, but I am not serving sunlight tonight," she said jokingly. "Anyways, come inside."

Even if the first room was already bigger than my whole den, Cera's real den started further. This den was built by many generations of Cera's family which, quite differently than other families, cared about each other even after evolution. Maybe that was a reason that almost every espeon came from her family. Actually, Cera lived here alone. As the strongest from her litter, she took the den while her family moved out, since then she could invite another eeveelution to live with her as a mate but so far, she was living here alone. Generally, it was very rare that anyone was even coming here, I or Serge were here only occasionally. But even as a friend of her there was a rule in her place: do not touch anything, and there was a lot of things to touch. In the deeper part of the den were rooms filled with treasures, glowing stones (pink one mainly), bones whose value I couldn't understand, and a lot of weird things which I didn't know how to name. Some of them seemed to be brought from the world of humans, but I wasn't sure since I haven't ever seen a human. I've only heard that they walk on two legs instead of four, have fur on weird parts of their body, and stink.

I didn't know how but that thought reminded me of something.

"Hey, Cera? Do you know why others say that I speak weirdly?" I asked following her as we were walking through the tunnel, lit weakly by the glowing orbs in the wall. The lighter parts of my leaves reflected the soft light.

"Because you are," she answered and met my meaningful muteness. "Okay, I'll explain it to you, let's just sit somewhere comfortable."

It appeared that the comfortable place to sit was five heaps of dry straw and leaves, five heaps of killed plants... but I tried to not think about it in that way. Stupid type thing, what other material was it supposed to be made of? Even I had my own bed made from them.

"About your speech, it's because you are the only leafeon here, and the other eeveelutions aren't used to your voice and it's different sounds," she spoke getting comfy on the one of the heap.

"What sounds?" I persisted, and followed her in settling down.

" _Lee, feon, leaf."_

"And similar ones," she said, completing her telepathic message. "Well, it was something that interested me from the moment when you evolved, I'm also currently trying to find out why your leaves are white at the bottom. It is quite easy to get used to this sound, I almost do not notice it anymore, but if someone hears you for the first time then it may surprise and confuse them."

"Uhh, I didn't even know that I made sounds like these, I sound very... indulgent," I said a little ashamed.  _Was I really speaking like that all the time?_

"It is not that bad, nothing can be worse than that male sylveon accent. Yours is nice, I mean after I get used to it." she calmed me but I still felt bad with this news. "Any more questions?"

"If two espeon read each other's minds then what are they thinking about?"

She rolled her eyes after hearing this query, looking a bit annoyed but at the same time very adorable.

"A different question?"

"About the white bottom of my leaves," I acted as if my question was never spoken and moved my tail so it was clearly visible. "What you think about it? My theory is that it is white because I never use the bottom side to absorb sunlight. I mean, I would need to lay on my back so the bottom could collect sun rays but then I would cover up all of the rest."

"Well that is an idea, but your tail is flexible enough to use the bottom side."

Suddenly, the deafening crack of thunder came to us from outside. We both jumped from our seats and curled in together in the middle of the room. It needed to hit quite close if it was that noisy.

"Do you have a deeper level?" I spoke with near silence, speaking with my eyes more than my mouth.

"Yes," she confirmed, also silent. She stood up from the tight hug in which we inadvertently found each other and began to walk. I closely followed her to the room after room, each deeper and deeper underground. Finally, she stopped; the room had a low and flat ceiling but curved where the ceiling connected to the walls and where walls were turning into the floor. The den was mostly empty, in the middle was another glowing stone but this one was much bigger than the ones I saw earlier. It was embedded in the ground and touching the ceiling with its top. I could touch the same ceiling with my ears, but a glowing stone was still impressive.

We were deep enough underground that I couldn't hear the swoosh of the wind or rumbling of the rain against the ground. Fear of thunder was ridiculous, since we knew that the chance of getting hit was practically nothing and noise couldn't hurt, but instinct was a thing which could not be ignored. When I felt that we were 'safe' here, I turned my eyes from the stone to Cera.

"What are these stones? You have a lot of them," I questioned and waved my paw at the one before us.

"I honestly don't know. Many generations ago when our pack didn't exist yet, some of my ancestors were collecting stones and they found somewhere a cave with these glowing stones. As you can guess, they took as much they could of them. Now it just a source of light, so this is possible to have a den in this size and not have to be an umbreon to see something inside of here," she answered, sitting down once more.

I also sit down, I still felt hunger but I tried to ignore it, generally, I still could ask Cera for something 'normal' to eat, but I wasn't sure how my belly would react to a food after almost a full year without. For now, I was resisting my hunger, but if this night lasted any longer, then I would have to eat something.

"So, how was your meeting with Sogot?" I asked, after an unpleasant moment of silence. She sighed and looked at me with a bored expression; it was obvious that it wasn't her favourite subject. I also didn't know why had I asked for it, it could make her only angry but I just hadn't thought about it.

"Just like always, 'we the strongest should be together', 'your resistance is making the pack weaker', 'with me you can be something more'," she answered trying to imitate the deep voice of our leader flareon. "If every pokemon raised by humans is that dumb, humans should be banned."

I actually didn't want to go into it, even if I was somehow involved in it, but I couldn't resist saying something more about Sogot's attempted wooing.

"Well, I think that could work on most of the females from the pack," I said.

"Yes, you are probably right, but that is good. When he becomes bored of asking me over and over again and ask someone else, she would agree faster than Sogot would have a chance to change his mind," she said and yawned, it seemed that the fatigue of being woke up in the middle of the night finally returned to her. Even if she was fighting it, the pull of sleep was visible, and her big, blue eyes, much brighter than any other espeons, were slowly closing against her will.

Suddenly her head fell down and with it, the rest of her body. She would have hit the ground if I hadn't jumped to support her. Half lying on my back half sitting on the ground she completely fell asleep, leaving me in a really uncomfortable position. But I actually shouldn't have been surprised; she was espeon, eeveelution which is active during the day just like me. In addition, this espeon was Cera, who slept for a long time, just like I would have had the storm not ruined  _that_  plan.

As slowly as I could, I slid from under Cera and gently placed her on the ground; she didn't wake up. Doing that I realised how nice her fur was to touch, so delicate, fine and soft. I had the desire to touch it again but I resisted, settling for just lying next to her, not sure what I should be doing right then. Theoretically, I could walk around here but I felt that there was something wrong with walking around in a friend's den while she was asleep, so I stayed where I was.

The darkness was disturbed only the dim light of glowing stone and the silence by Cera's rhythmic breathing. I was lying on my stomach on the ground with my head between my forepaws. Even if the ground here was made of stone, it wasn't cold at all. I wasn't sure why, there had to be some techniques to keep a den warm but I knew only one: to gather straw, leaves or other things which seem to keep warm. Serge knew more about digging dens than I did.

_Maybe should I ask him how to prepare my den for the rain?_

It wasn't the first time it rained heavily, but usually, I had a tree next to my den's entrance for protection. Unfortunately just as heavy rain season ended it was burned with some other trees to make space for new dens.

The silence and duskiness jaded me, and despite that, I wasn't tired my eyes kept closing. Just as I closed my eyes someone tapped me on the back. I almost yelled from the surprise as a single spasm went through my body. I hadn't heard anyone come in.

"Hi," I recognised Serge's voice when he greeted me in a whisper, and when I looked at him he gave a sign with his head to go with him outside. I silently stood up, throwing fast look in the room before I followed the umbreon; Cera still asleep. I couldn't really see Serge, my weak eyesight in the darkness and the dark fur of the umbreon made me see only a few floating, shining blue rings in the air. That let me knew where he was, but was the ring I assumed was on his head really on his head, or was it his tail? The lights in Cera's den could be really confusing.

"It is nice to see you, but what you are doing here?" I asked as we were far enough to speak normally and not disturb Cera's sleep.

"It was hard to miss the signs of this rainfall coming, so went to check on you just when it stopped," he said still leading me through the dark corridors until we were in the room with 'window'. "Your den is, well, I think you probably need to dig a new one since your old one collapsed. I came to check if you were here before I went to dig in the mud to look for your body."

_Was I the only one who didn't see the rain coming?_

"Uh, thanks. It is good to know that you care, but my den, is there really nothing left of it?" I questioned, a little sad. Maybe I didn't have anything valuable there, but I had dug it when I was an eevee and back then, it was a proud achievement.

"No. But don't worry, as the noble Azor always said 'Unexpected work always... eh, fuck I forgot the rest, he said something wise I think." Serge said finally turning to me. Azor was the name of a pack leader from very long ago and his name used to fit some sayings, he was a kind of symbol these days. I noticed that Serge was smiling, but I didn't like his smile. It wasn't the first time I'd seen it. "But I see that you took advantage of this rain, how was it 'I prefer jolteon', heh?"

"It wasn't anything like that I just..."

"Went to Cera, in the middle of the stormy night, trusting that she welcomes you into her warm house," Serge recapped keeping his smile on. "And then I found you two asleep, deep underground, together. So how it was? I didn't see any mess so I guess you were done quite fast."

I couldn't resist and spun around, slapping him in the face with my tail. It was more like a dab than a slap since I missed due his quick reflexes.

"Hey! You two are of similar age, and I'm just curious how two inexperienced eeveelutions would do it."

"We didn't do anything!" I screamed at the top of my lungs angry and embarrassed. In the same time, both of us lifted ears trying to hear if our espeon friend woke up, if Cera heard it I would be shamed for the rest of my life.

"If it is hard for you, I can talk first and tell you about my time with Liss," he proposed a moment later after we didn't hear anything.

"Wha? You... no how how did you even appeared here?" I mumbled, trying not to scream again. "These are psychic barriers in entrances."

"Yeah, but they don't affect me, I'm a dark type," he praised, forgetting the Cera discussion. He was sometimes irritating, but if he managed to stand my company then I will stand his.

"Is it daytime already?" I asked.

"It should be morning right now; when I was entering this den it was already well-lit, but it is still drizzling," he said and scratched his ear with one of his back legs. Then I noticed that he was completely dry, and he shouldn't have been if he was outside.

_Maybe the water can't go through the psychic barrier, even on an umbreon._

"Rain doesn't really bother me, I was starving the whole night. I'll use whatever sunlight there is, even during rain," I said and made my way to the exit.

"Don't rush so fast, I can go through the entrance, but you are not dark type. You need to wait for Cera," he spoke and passed next to me. "Also, did you realised that if it still raining there are clouds in the sky?"

"Some of the sun always go through the clouds. Are you not staying?" I said from behind him.

"No, I'm nocturnal. I already should be asleep. I hate mornings, I have a headache from the daylight already," he answered back, and disappeared from my sight going out of the den.


	3. Ch3 Another day, another night

There I was, sitting just before a pink barrier of psychic energy trying to catch some light, but unfortunately, I couldn't reach any light with my leaves. I was sentenced to starving and even the energy that was blocking my way outside seemed to be appetizing.

_How does psychic energy taste anyways?_

From the colour, I would like to say that it was sweet, but how was it really? I decided to test it. I licked it slowly from the bottom to the top and stopped with my tongue still touching the barrier. The taste was weird, it wasn't sweet, that was certain, but it also wasn't bitter. In the same moment the barrier winked and disappeared.

"Ahhhh, why did you do that?" I heard Cera's voice from behind me, it caught me so surprised that I forgot to hide my tongue when I turned to her. "Why did you lick the barrier?"

"I wanted to try and see how it tasted," I answered with hesitation. "I thought that you were sleeping."

"I  _was,_  but I can't sleep when someone is licking me!" she puffed; she hated to be woken before she decided that she wanted to be up and about.

"You felt that...?"

"Of course I felt it, never again try to lick my mind!" she barked, and I felt myself shrink just a little under her gaze.

_Well, at least, I know what psychic tastes like now._

"Sorry. But thank you for letting me stay the night, by the way," I said kindly. "I guess I'll get going now."

"You're welcome, I will stay here... for some more time," Cera answered with a yawn, and went back to the depths of her den. I wondered if she should be overjoyed for the arrival of the morning, just like an espeon usually would be. Maybe not everything depends on one's type?

Not wasting any more time, I jumped out of the den into the warm rays of the sun, my leaves starting to work immediately, but I didn't stop to lay on the ground; I had enough of lying down lately. I walked in my den's direction at a brisk pace. I wanted to check how it looked right away and why Serge had said I should build a new one. During the day it was much easier to walk, avoid puddles, and dodge joyful vaporeons enjoying their favourite weather. Muddy ground and puddles were not much of as much of an issue as they were last night, at least until any jolteon came around.

After a long walk of zigzagging to avoid puddles, I arrived at a place where my den was- or should have been. Now there was only another puddle with two vaporeons in it.

"Do you need something?" asked one of them, not very kindly but still friendly, when he noticed that I was staring at them, or rather at the puddle.

"Uh, I think I used to live here," I answered him, not bothering myself any longer in avoiding the water, I was wet anyway from my dew, not nearly as much as last time, since no one was trying their 'stimulating' technique on me, but it was still tangible.

"We all live here, it is something called a pack, a group of one species living and sharing the surrounding area," replied the second one, much older than me or the other vaporeon.

"I actually meant this specific place, right under your paws," I determined. "It was my den before it started to rain."

"Oh, I'm sorry, we thought it was just a deep puddle. You see, my son over here didn't know how to swim, and I was trying to teach him," 'father' explained, visibly embarrassed and started to get out of the water. Even if it was now only a puddle, it was still 'my' puddle.

"No, you can stay, I can't use it anyway now," I said before they manage to stand on the ground. "But if..." I paused, pointing at younger water-type.

"Struga," the older vaporeon hurried with his son's name, who already looked as if he wanted to run away, maybe it was a shame for him that he couldn't swim.

"But if Struga can't swim, then how did he evolve into vaporeon, I thought that you needed to spend a lot of time in the water to evolve that way?" I asked, since even me, Serge and Cera could swim a bit swim, or at least not sink like rocks or flareons.

"I was drowning and evolution saved my life," Struga said, ashamed but looking up at me calmly. "I don't know how to swim, I am trying to learn. Right now, I just... walk around the edges of the lake and carefully in the river."

It was reminding me about my problems with my evolution, how I didn't know what I could do, what my purpose was and my...

_Hey wait, I still don't know any of those things!_

I was even lower than Struga was, since he at least knew what he needed to learn. But me? I didn't even know where I should start, should I try to improve my ability to absorb the sun, learn something more about exhaling smells, or maybe something completely different? I knew why Struga was ashamed, I was too, it was this silent and small emotion at the bottom of my heart which stung from time to time.

"We had to go anyway," older vaporeon broke the silence. "Goodbye... leafeon." He said and went his own way, his son following him. I just looked once more at my puddle-den and start walking in the direction of the forest, without any reason.

The storm didn't miss the forest. The entire floor was covered by fallen branches, most of them still having green leaves attached, making it even harder to walk and see. I tried to clear away a few of them, but just as I lifted one of the branches I heard someone approaching me from behind. It wasn't in a sneaking way, just a noise of four paws lumbering on the still wet ground.

"Hey, I just forgot to say that... WHOA is that some kind of leafeon ability?!" I hear a voice and just as I turned I saw Struga standing there, a little astonished. I let the branch fall from my muzzle and unfortunately, it fell on my paw.

 _Fuck!_  I thought but I only grit my teeth and hissed quietly.

"Ah it was only a branch with leaves," Struga said a little disappointed, he was now without his father and he wasn't in water so I could see how exactly he was looking like. His posture was rather slim and his height was shorter than average for vaporeons, but it still made both of us similar; maybe he was just like me, newly evolved. Despite it, he was still much longer in his body shape but that would be weird if he wasn't. Vapoerons were always the biggest eeveelutions because of their length."I just wanted to ask you for a favour, could you keep in secret what I have told you? I don't want others to think that my evolution was a mistake and even more I don't want anyone to know that I can't swim."

"Okay... I can keep it as a secret but why did you tell me if it's a secret?" I asked, trying to understand his logic.

"My father was so upset by us walking on your den without permission that he would tell you about anything that you would ask him. He would tell you the whole story, about my whole past, so I made it shorter and well, less embarrassing," Struga explained. It did make sense when he said it that way.

"It's just a puddle now," I replied, not wanting to return to my destroyed home.

"Yeah, see you later then, I guess." vaporeon said, and turned to walk away. I also turned, but towards the forest once again. However, I didn't find any willingness to clean here any longer. I walked back to the pack centre but a different way then Struga did. I thought that it would be strange if, after saying goodbye, I would follow him. Besides, Struga appeared to be friendly and nice so far, but I didn't really know any vaporeon before and I always thought that were are sort of rude. Maybe because of the unusual membranes on their flippers and strange spikes going through their spine, or maybe it was something else. Anyways, I was nicely surprised. But a sudden unpleasant and not-really surprising sight was a familiar sylveon who, just as he spotted me, happily started walking my way; it seemed that smile never left Cyrus's face.

"Hello there leaf, how are you doing?" He accosted kindly in a loud voice; there were many others speaking here, in the crowded centre of the pack, so it was hard to discern one voice from another. "Do you need any... medical help?" I looked at him tellingly and he harrumphed with a nervous chuckle. "Obviously you don't need any, heh, so, umm, would you mind to take a look at few ill eeveelutions and eevees?"

_Again..._

"I guess I must," I sighed, but I gave him an enthusiastic smile and nod, masking a silent grumble when he was busy by just being happy that I agreed.

"Follow me then, they're just at the beach at the river lagoon," he said taking a lead and I followed him. "How you were doing in the storm, it was quite a strong one."

"I ended up with my friend in her den, it was quite nice actually but my own den was completely destroyed," I answered him, realising that really was an unpleasant storm for me.

"In 'her den' you said, who is this mysterious 'she'?" Cyrus asked, looking back at me with another one of his smiles. I didn't know if it was just me but every time I looked at a sylveon, maybe with exception of Cyrus but every other sylveon that smiled at me made me feel happier. But more problematic, he asked me with whose den I was in last night! One idiot named Serge knowing was enough for one day, and I didn't really want to talk about it with Cyrus. It would even be unfair towards my umbreon friend, since I didn't tell him anything that happened last night but... wait, where are my thoughts going? I didn't tell Serge anything because NOTHING happened! Cera greeted me, cleaned me, talk a little, both get scared and went to sleep. Just nothing to talk about. However, how I would explain that I just slept in a den of a higher class eeveelution than me or Cyrus.

"Ehhh, you don't know her anyway," I answered evasively. "But what happened to the eeveelutions where we're going now?"

"Oh, yes I was about to tell you. Just as always, before four times when the moon is round like a currant, the season of storms is starting to be followed by the coldness and white snow..."

"Wait, wait, hold on, how much of time means four times of the somewhat shaped moon?" I questioned quite puzzled. Yeah, umbreons and sylveons knew some of the moon pattern stuff, but I was absolutely green in it.

"It is two times more than the time which the moon needs to change his shape from left-half white currant to right-half white currant," he hurried with his really 'helpful' explanation.

"So is it long?" I asked once again trying to not catch a headache with his explanation. I am not some fucking umbreon who can calculate moon currants in the night sky, no offence to Serge. Cyrus opened his mouth to answer me but before he could I fastly added, "Answer only yes or no!"

"Yes," he answered with a little hesitation. "But what was about to say, because of these storms and a fact that in the pack is currently a lot of unevolved eevee there probably will be a sudden increase of jolteons. And that's just what happened, one of the eevee evolved into jolteon while she was in the water and when she saw her reflection she frightened herself so much that she shocked everyone in the river."

"Shouldn't these eevees be under someone's watch or something?" I asked quite surprised by the event and even more, I was surprised and confused when older sylveon started to laugh.

"Hehe, under a watch? Most of them are older than you, some of them even by two winters!" He said and laughed once again. Then I realised that it was almost Serge's age. I was aware of how eevees evolve and that age isn't really important; how I could be not, I was an eevee once too, but if something like this happened I would expect some young group, not older eevees.

The effect of being shocked would fade with time on its own, but it was always harsh and unpleasant. Electricity was dangerous but newly evolved jolteon couldn't make any real harm even to small eevee that would be permanent. Wild energy was always quite weak and dispersed.

When we got closer to the river I saw a group of unconscious small brown creatures. Next to them was a few also not moving eeveelutions, mostly vaporeons but also three umbreons and a lone espeon. The only one standing in the whole group was a jolteon, probably the cause of the massive shock. She was lucky that Sogot was a flareon and never even walked close to the river, if he did, she would be invited to a talk similar to mine. The jolteon was short, with fur similar in colour to a daffodil. Her fur-spikes didn't look sharp or even able to sting, probably because she was in the water lately. She had a very nervous stance; she was standing in place but also rapidly stepping from paw to paw, looking around. She wasn't facing us, she was paying her whole attention to the paralysed eeveelutions. We came from her left side.

"Hey! I am back!" Cyrus greeted her, in the same moment the air was pierced with the sound of a crack and for a moment the jolteon was lit up with light. It reminded me why I didn't like to be anywhere near these electric types, they could just sneeze or fart and you were fried. Luckily, both me and Cyrus were far enough to avoid getting hit.

"Uh!" the jolteon breathed surprised, "Sorry, sorry! I didn't want- uh I'm just new, it just... ehm," she blurted with the speed that I almost didn't understand her. She walked closer and I saw out of the corner of my eye that, the sylveon next to me warily took a few steps back. That made the jolteon freeze for the moment and her eyes watered. "You-you are scared of me! Please, don't be! I don't want to do anything to you, it was all accident!" she was at the edge of cry.

"No no, we are not, right Cyrus? Just calm down," I tried to comfort her somehow.

"You're not? Thank you!" she screamed and jumped, rubbing her head against my neck, and this was when another crack came in, electricity immediately jumping from the jolteon to me.

"AAAaaaa-it doesn't hurt that much actually," I started, my cry more due to surprise than real pain. The last time I was shocked was quite a long time ago and it hurt a lot; it still wasn't pleasant now, but rather a weird feeling, not painful.

"It didn't?" Cyrus asked surprised. "It looked rather serious."

"Not at all," I answered, "What your name anyway?" I asked the less nervous jolteon, snapping her out of her blank stare.

"Navia" she said kindly. That was quite a nice name to have, I thought.

"My name is Zar," I answered and then turn my sight to the paralysed pokemon. "It will take me awhile to heal all of them."

"Then I won't be bothering you any longer, good luck and have fun!" shouted sylveon, and I didn't even notice him vanish.

_Why am I helping him anyway?_

"It looks that I need to use your help since the only one able to grab things just left us," I spoke to the Navia.

"Okay," she replied without hesitation but then added, "What if I shock them again?"

"Try not to," I said. "We need to move them into a tighter group, that would be easier for me to heal them, let's start with eevees."

I walked to the smaller pre-evolution and grabbed one of them with my mouth by the furry collar. Navia made the same but just as she wanted to walk, she stumbled against her own legs and fell on her face and a really unlucky eevee.

"Oh sorry!" she apologised the eevee as she stood up and again started sparking with electricity. "I am not used to this larger body yet."

I left it without comment since I had my mouth full. She wasn't much help and I formed the group mainly by myself before I went into the middle of it and lay down on my stomach. I needed to produce a really big cloud of that specific 'smell' so every eevee could inhale the healing energies. I wasn't really in the mood to do it, but I still had to force myself to do it. The joys of being the best healer in the pack, I guess...

* * *

The sun was close to the horizon when the eevees started to stand up but the cloud, which slightly coloured the air around in green, was a little bigger than I meant for it to be. It still managed to reverse all of the paralysis of the injured pokemon.

"I'm sorry for you being paralysed like this, I hope we can still be friends!" the jolteon hurried with an apology to her eevee friends. "Heh, it is strange how small you look to me now." She added when she walked closer to them.

"Don't apologise to us, we all congratulate you on your evolution!" someone from the group called out. I couldn't see which one and I had no interest to find out. I stood up and walked out of the river bank; night was coming and I had no place to sleep.

I walked to the place on the hill from where I could see one of the river's lagoons and where I usually met my friends. There was a fallen tree here that had enough empty space for me to fit inside. I didn't enter it yet though, instead I sat down on the grassy field before the tree.

The sun was slowly hiding behind the horizon, just where the river flow. Last rays of the sun made the river look like a path of the gold honey but also was reminding me about the jolteon from earlier and her power. Navia, that jolteon, she just evolved today and had difficulty with walking and controlling her lightning bolts, but she would spend few days under the care of another more experienced jolteon and soon I would be a weakling compared to her. Serge at my age was already a 'normal' umbreon, not the strongest or the weakest from the pack, but nothing to be laughed at. Cera became powerful even earlier than that. Everyone was improving, they all had something to working on or something that they had achieved.

I was the only one stuck in one place; I couldn't learn anything more, I couldn't find out what I could do. Or maybe what I already knew was all that I would ever learn? Maybe my evolution had no greater purpose than doing a sylveon's work for him and causing plants to grow?

_No, there has to be something that I could do. I need to try something else, anything._

I caught some of the last sun's rays, changing them into energy through my leaves and forcing it into the grass before me. I felt a sudden pain from the unexpected forcing of my leaves to work and I panted from the effort, but to my disappointment, absolutely nothing happened. It didn't appear as any dark sphere like what Serge could do, nor a psychic illumination, not even a spark of light, or whatever.

"AHHH! Fuck this!" I shouted, not being afraid of being heard by anyone, it was really rare that someone was coming here. "Fuck this grass, fuck all this leafeon shit! Why I couldn't evolve into a flareon!? I was trying but no, fuck your efforts Zar, here you are now, the most useless evolution possible!"

I was angry for what happened, but at the same time, I felt completely powerless about it. I was always fascinated with fire, with its warmth and energy but since I evolved, all I ever felt was panic and fear just at the sight of even the smallest flame.

"I thought that I would never again see kind of passion," spoke a voice from the darkness. I jumped, my anger gone in my surprise. But instead of any monster roaming the night, I saw Serge, his rings almost invisible in the dusk of the forest. It wasn't that dark just yet, but umbreon always seem to melt with a shadowed environment.

"That was almost like you before your evolution, but back then it wasn't caused by anger," he continued.

"Ah shut up," I mumbled, sighing and sitting down. Serge joined me, dropping down next to me.

"So what's wrong?" Serge pushed to a conversation.

"Didn't you hear already?" I barked back, I wanted to keep to myself the fact that I didn't like my appearance.

"From what I heard I can guess that it's something to do with you evolution, but your actions don't make much sense and I can't see your thoughts," Serge said, sounding as kind and calm as his harsh umbreon's voice allowed him.

"I just think... Sogot probably has a point. I am useless to everyone here. Cyrus is the only one who has any use for me but it isn't often that some jolteon paralyzes a bunch of eeveelutions," I explained, my mask crumbling. I knew that Serge would push me as long as it took for me to say what was on my mind.

"Opinions are like asses, everyone has their own," said Serge, looking at the moon as it rose above the horizon. Now it was getting dark, and Serge, who was still next to me, was getting difficult to discern with my poor night vision.

"Who said that?" I asked after a while of thinking of the sense of his words.

"Me," answered Serge not losing his stare from the moon.

"Maybe you shouldn't think about sayings, it doesn't sound really inspired," I said, and tried to see what was so interesting in the silver oval in the air. But it was just a moon. I preferred to see it during the day, then I could see it with more details.

"But it is hard to ignore," said Serge, finally turning his eyes to me. His eyes seemed to glow more and more as it got later in the day, just like his blue rings. "Sogot said you are useless because he is afraid of you."

"What? Sogot, our leader, afraid of me?" I said surprised; how could the leader of the pack be afraid of someone like me? "Are you sure?"

"I am a dark type, I always know when someone is lying and when someone is scared. It is just like a scent in the air; it can't be mistaken for anything different," the umbreon explained. I couldn't see his face anymore, just the light of his rings; they looked as if were floating in empty space.

"Why he would be afraid of me? I hadn't any plans to become a leader or fight with him in any other way," I asked my friend.

"(Cough)Cera(cough)" he coughed.

"What?"

"Oh nothing, I had something in my throat but I wanted to say that Sogot was raised in the different world than we know. I wasn't in that world, but looking at Sogot I can say that it had to be a very cruel world out there," he moved his paw to point ahead, or I guessed that he did it from the movement of his rings.

"You mean... in the darkness or night?" I asked unsurely.

"I mean behind these mountains and towards the horizon, the one always covered in clouds slowly climbing up its sides," he explained. "Sogot thinks that you have some power which he can't see, he thinks that is the reason why you are friend with me and Cera. But he hasn't seen anything so far and when he asked others, no one knew anything. So he grows suspicious that you are hiding something."

"Sogot doesn't know friendship, that I or Cera can just like you, not requiring from you any abilities or benefits. He is from a world where only power matters. I just hope that we won't ever have to face this different world." said Serge.

"Isn't that just ignoring the problem? To separate us from... "

"The world of the humans is not something that should ever be faced," he cut me off briskly. "You know that Sogot is strong here, but he escaped from them with his tail between his legs. I know that it is not in your style to stay in one place, with every year you like to go further and further in the wilderness, but please, don't go too far because if you do, I would need to find you and bring you back. Then I will show you how bad umbreon can be. You will be yearning for when I was 'just' insulting and 'just' biting you"

"Okay, okay I understand, don't scare me that much or I won't sleep at night," I said it jokingly.

"Heh, I guess I went a little too far," Serge said sheepishly, and his rings shone much brighter. "But about tonight, where are you planning on sleeping?"

I turned to the fallen tree, knowing that his eyes would be able to see it in the darkness.

"Really, you wanted to sleep in there?! I mean, it's not that bad for a nap but I won't allow my friend to sleep here when there is a much more comfortable place to sleep," Serge said standing up.

"Really? Where?" I asked, moving to rise.

"I am nocturnal, I don't use my den at night. You can sleep there until you rebuild yours, and this time properly prepared for everything." Serge said.

"Can I really stay? Oh, thank you, you are really saving me now," I couldn't hide my happiness in my voice, but maybe I shouldn't. Nights could be cold and I was worried enough about the prospect of enduring it in that log.

"Yeah sure, it's not a problem for me. But if you  _prefer_  to go to Cera, then... ," his eyes sparkled yellow when he said it.

"And give you even more weird ideas?" I muttered. "No thanks. Could you guide me to your den? I'm blind at night and, you know, last time when I wandered alone in the darkness I evolved."

"Sure, just follow the light."

Serge really was trying to guide me properly but his blue rings weren't making as much light as yellow ones would make. I was stumbling on almost every little thing. The clearing in the night only slightly lighted in blue looked very strange for me; I couldn't recognise any places we were passing, only somewhere far ahead I saw another yellow light.

"There are a lot of umbreons in the pack right?" I asked Serge from behind him.

"I don't remember the exact number but yeah, probably the second or third most popular evolution. Why are you asking?" replied Serge, forcing himself to exhale a little more light so I could see a puddle I would have probably walked in.

"We are going through the centre of the pack and we haven't met anyone, but there are some lights over there," I pointed out, it seemed to be weird for me. Others eeveelutions were always grouped up here.

"What made you think that we are in the centre?" asked Serge with a smirk.

"We are not?" I answered with a question.

"We are. I'm just messing with you, what's your point?" Serge grumbled.

"Why we are here alone? I didn't see any other umbreon, only from far away from where there are some lights," I finally asked.

"It's their dark desire."

"What you mean?"

"These umbreons were waiting whole days to satisfy their desire. I chose the empty path so they won't do it on you," Serge explained.

"You mean, insults and biting? It's not that bad, I got used to it after all our spars," I said, but even as I spoke I wasn't sure if these things were what Serge was talking about.

"No, there are much worse things, I was never completely honest with you about living as a dark type. Generally, it was the purpose why I was looking for you today but I didn't want to give you my problems seeing that you have your own."

"Now you have to tell me, or I am going back to sleep in the tree," I said stubbornly.

"Do you even know the way back?" he asked me.

"No," I answered and stopped moving. Talking with him helped me to stop thinking about myself as useless, and if he had any problem I could help him with, I needed to do it.

He also stopped and looked over his shoulder.

"How about your sickness? Did it ever come back? Do you ever feel like you're relapsing? " Serge asked, jumping to a completely different theme. The 'sickness' was actually the lack of trust to everyone and everything, even when I saw it with my own eyes and ears. I glared at him for bringing it up; I only had that 'sickness' when I was really young, before I had evolved, and using such old thing just to avoid my question was a low blow to me.

"Okay, I will tell you, but don't stop. We are near my den," he said and, only hesitating slightly, I continued to follow him. Just a few steps more and we were in the entrance to Serge's den.

Just as always, it was absolutely dark here, even during the day I couldn't see a thing in here so I never really learned how his den looked like. Serge guided me to the place where I could lie down. Then he walked away from me, and judging from the way his rings dimmed, he decided to lay down too.

"I think I will start without any long speech and just explain how the dark types work," said Serge after a moment of silence.

"Go on."

"I avoided others umbreons today because we were walking in the time of hunting," Serge said. "Today we have a very small moon, probably tomorrow it won't be even visible, for umbreons the moon works reassuringly. If it's bigger in the sky, then umbreons are calmer; today's hunting will be very bloody."

"Wait, so it means that just a few moments after sunset our clearing and forest is full of umbreons with a thirst for blood?" I asked a little shocked.

S _hould there be a warning if it happens every day?_

"Zar, you took my words wrong. We do not change into some brainless monsters in the night. Today when I was with you I was avoiding the other umbreon not because I was afraid that someone would bite off your tail, but because I didn't want to create a situation where some umbreon would need to resist his dark desire," he explained. "We do  _not_  feel comfortable with it and we don't like when someone sees in us our darkness. It's just like two sides fighting with each other inside, the part of the eeveelution which loves to live in a group and part of our pure dark typing, the part of a lonely hunter whose life hasn't any matter and who likes to hurt others, pack or not."

"But, you are umbreon too, and you seem to be... uh, well, just 'normal' right now," I pointed out; it wasn't the first time when Serge had kind of depression and just needed to talk. Two times in one moon circle was standard. He was never very fearful, but his fears sometimes just came to him. "And you described it as if it was really hard to resist."

"I take it as a compliment," the umbreon said and chuckled. "Is it hard to resist? Sometimes yes, it depends on how you are doing in your first days after evolution. If you allow these desires control you, they will take control quite often and an umbreon won't be a true eon anymore, just another lonely dark-typed killer. Teaching how to resist is a part of umbreon training, no one wants to become a killer, and no one wants to raise a killer," he added, pausing.

"Yet, you are allowing this second part to take control and satisfy these desires," I said.

"That's true, but I or anyone else won't be doing it brainlessly. You should be glad that we do it; thanks to it you can sleep peacefully."

"Stop pausing after saying something mysterious, it's annoying and absolutely obvious that I will ask for more detail! You are doing it just like every mother who tells her young eevees a story about 'Nameless'," I demanded a little irritated.

"You mean that story about the espeon with unnaturally coloured eyes who fell in love with... ahh I don't remember...

"In my mother's version he was a flareon, and he fell in love with another fire type," I said.

"I guess everyone has its own version, I also heard versions with umbreon, glaceon but never with sylveon," wondered Serge. "I don't remember what the story was."

"It always started with "When the shadow of the mountain was light up by thunder..." but in short. They loved each other but couldn't stay together, someone sacrificed and this was the end," I added, but just like Serge, I didn't remember that story very well. "But weren't we trying to talk about something different? No more distractions."

"Okay, so at night there are ghost pokemon that come out, and they appear somewhere close to the mountains. They are probably the reason why so many eevees evolve in umbreon." I could hear some anger in Serge's voice, probably because of my demand.

"I never heard about it." I tinged my voice in some of the positive energy, this talk became creepy and I could feel that Serge is just preparing me for something what he really wants to say.

"No one hears about it, it's just a thing you learn when you join umbreons society." I saw that he was now looking straight at me, his yellow eyes sharp. If I saw those eyes somewhere in the forest during the night, I would be afraid for my own life.

"Is that why you went to find me today? Because of ghost pokemon?" I asked trying to push this conversation forward again. Right now, it was just an explanation, and I couldn't grasp what was bothering him so much, what he was saying about these things didn't look like it worried him; he even seemed happy that he could share it with me, until that sudden stare.

"Ghosts aren't our usual prey, we chase them for fun. The problem is… I didn't manage to resist my desire as I should have, just that one time," he said and his voice seemed to catch, growing really sad and quiet. "It was typical hunting; we hunt other pokemon and they lose their life, but we kill them fast, but I didn't do it that time. I made them feel the pain for a long time, not only physical injuries but also mental. I couldn't stop myself and made her look, and, and... ."

"I get it," I cut him off, seeing how much pain it caused him to talk about it, but I didn't understand what he was talking about. Who was she? Did someone die? Did Serge do something wrong?

"You don't," said the umbreon sadly, and I lost sight of his rings. Only after a few minutes I noticed that they were still there but not shining as much as usually.

"Okay I don't, but I can't. I have never been in real danger, never had a real fight and I've never seen death, maybe only on training hunts but that doesn't matter; it's just like with the world around us and the world of humans behind mountains. I can't say that I understand your world because I live in my own but I can see that you can't talk about it," I said as calmly as I could, and even decided to exhale a little of this scent that was putting everyone to sleep but only a little so he wouldn't be snoring in a moment. Blue rings in the darkness shone a little more but still were weakly visible. I heard a sigh.

"So, what would you say I should do? I didn't want to do it but at the same time, I couldn't stop doing it. If this urge to hurt others is stronger than my rational thought, what if next time on my late night path will be a lost eon or someone who I know like you or Cera or even Lissandre?" Serge said darkly, his voice about to break.

 _What would I do in his place? I don't know._  I couldn't grasp the situation but I also knew I wanted to help my friend.

"Maybe you could try to move on?" I said, I could feel in my leaves that the air was getting wetter and using my nose I could tell that it was Serge's sweat, this only proved to me that it really bothered him.

"How I can move on when I still have this scene in my mind! Even Cera won't be able to wipe it away because I am a fucking darkling and she can't use psychic on me! It doesn't work!" he was going on desperately, talking louder and louder, panicking-

And then I tensed, exhaling as much of my calming scent as I could. It seemed to work because Serge stopped talking and took a few deep breaths. He kept breathing but I started to feel weak; I usually took energy from the sun and water to create this effect, now I needed to use my own vitality. But there was something more what was making me feel... just bad.

"It always amazed me how great it smells,"Serge finally spoke and his rings returned to the normal glow allowing me to see where he was once again. It appeared that he wasn't lying anymore and was standing somewhere close to the wall since I could clearly see a well-lighted stone wall. "Thank you. Not only for that healing ability but I really needed to throw all of this out of my head. Thank you for listening and trying to understand but... why have your leaves become yellow?"

"I think that I need some air," I said, and stood up to walk outside, but then I had a blackout. Everything was silent, I couldn't hear anything, just an escalating sound of screeching in my ears. I tried to look around but my head was so heavy that I couldn't lift it. I wasn't even sure if I had my eyes open or closed, it was just dark.

* * *

_Breathe._

Commanded a voice, it was a female, familiar voice but I couldn't connect it to anything that I knew. I followed the comment and breathed, one breath, second breath third, and then I vomited.

It was still the night, I was lying on my back and as I opened my eyes

I could see the moon above me, it was very thin. I guessed that it is still the same night. I rolled to my belly for a more comfortable position but then in my vision jumped a lilac creature. I couldn't focus my eyes on this creature, I felt dizzy and everything was rolling in my sight and losing focus. The creature put a paw to my cheek and looked straight in my eyes.

"What have you eaten today?" it asked.  _What have I eaten today? Or maybe it was yesterday? Was today still today or tomorrow was already today?_

"Sun I guess," I spoke surprising myself by the sound which I exhaled, it was so weak, so quiet. Then I wanted to close my eyes but I got a powerful slap in my face just when I tried to.

"Stay awake," spoke pink blob before me and then turned to something on it right. "He is poisoned, was he eating anything?"

"No, or at least not when he was with me, I thought that he lives now only on the solar power," answered harshly something that seemed to be slightly blue but no matters how many times I blinked but my vision still wasn't clear, just like my thoughts. I tried to stand up but I fell to the side.

"Don't move just lay, it all right, it will pass, just lay down and stay awake," spoke sweet voice somewhere close to my ear.

"Will he be really okay?" asked again this harsh voice from somewhere behind. "With these brown leaves, he looks as if he had forty seasons more life than he had."

"He is a part plant, every illness will be very visible on his leaves but using my psychic I can say that this poison isn't life dangerous. It just confuses him. But it was good that you came to me fast, if I couldn't wake him then this might have been much worse." spoke a female voice again and I started to feel a headache. I wanted to put my paw on my forehead but it ended up on my nose. How could I confuse my forehead with my nose? I made another attempt to do it but now I didn't even know where my paw landed; the third time something grabbed it and kept it.

"If he didn't eat anything then what could poison him? Some plant with needles or some thorns? I don't even know if there as poisonous plants anywhere here," said a female creature which was keeping my paw in 'something'. I managed to lift my head enough to look at my paw and noticed that it is covered in some pink slightly glowing thing. I pulled myself a little closer to it and licked. The taste was well known to me.

"Cera?" I asked in the darkness and in my view appeared once again this lilac blob. "I don't see."

"Just wait it will pass soon. You really scared me with all of this," Cera said and I rolled again to stand up. "Don't stand up, just wait and don't panic."

It was as if she was reading my mind since I was just about to panic. I felt blind, I felt all numb and I had a headache.

"It's already better," the harsh voice said and I identified it as Serge.

"Once again I will ask, were you eating anything today?" asked worried Cera.

"No I wasn't, I just had a long rest in the sun," I answered, my vision was already getting better, I could see the espeon before me, not just a blob, Serge was still invisible for me but even normally he was hard to notice during the night.

"So, have you any ideas what could poison you? It needed to be very strong, just imagine what it could do to eevee, maybe even kill it," Cera pleaded.

"I don't know, I start to feel something in Serge's den but I didn't eat anything," I said thinking about the day but thinking still wasn't easy because of a headache.

"Maybe... it was my sweat, umbreon's sweat is poisonous, not really strong but can affect some senses," proposed Serge unsure.

"You won't tell me that he drunk your sweat, will you?" asked Cera glancing at the umbreon.

"No, of course not, but he could smell it," Serge quickly defended himself.

"It's too weak to put an eeveelution unconscious," countered Cera. " But maybe... maybe leafeons are just very weak to poison?"

"I don't know, I am not a specialist of leafeon," I said getting their stares. "What?" I asked, as their eyes made me feel uncomfortable.

"I need to think about it, just promise me to avoid any possible poisons," said Cera, getting ready to walk away but waiting until I promise.

"I promise, but I really wish I could go to sleep now," I said tiredly, just at the edge of the sleep.

"Okay I will take you with me then, it will be even safer that way," said Cera, and I lost contact with the ground, floating forward after the espeon. Levitating above the ground was very comfortable, not using my muscles to walk. So comfortable that I couldn't resist the urge to the sleep any longer.


	4. Ch4 'Love all around

Just as I woke up, even before I opened my eyes, I felt that this day would be one of these days where I would get up only to wait until I could sleep again. I felt so lazy that I wanted to do absolutely nothing; however, I couldn't force myself to sleep any longer. The sun's rays were glaring at my eyelids and bothering me even while they were shut tight, but that wasn't enough to make me move, but the water that suddenly started dripping on me did. I opened my eyes and saw that I was on a grassy field, not far from Cera's den. Who, coincidentally, was also standing next to me using her psychic powers on the water hovering above me, rhythmically dropping small blobs on me as if imitating rain. She wasn't looking at me but concentrating on the floating water.

"Could you stop that?" I asked, slowly getting wet. She tensed but listened to my request, and the entire water bubble fell on me all at once. "Hey! What was that for?"

"Uh, I thought I should water you," she spoke after a bit of hesitation.

"Why?"

"You have brown leaves now, like withered plants, so I had the idea that this might help," Cera answered, but it seemed that she wasn't sure of her idea anymore.

"I am not a plant! I don't even bloom," I said irritated. Even if there was sense to her actions, I didn't want to be treated like a plant. It was good that she didn't decide to bury me underground only with my leaves above the ground, I guess.  _Something to be thankful for there._

I looked back to see my leaves. They were really sickly, maybe not brown like Cera said but yellow, or at least this side, which used to be green. Of course, the bottom was white as always. I felt that they weren't absorbing the sun as well as they used to.

"What happens to the typical plant's leaves when they are yellow?" I stood up and questioned Cera; my weakness from yesterday gone, aside of almost not working leaves.

"Wait wait wait, you are a plant- " I looked at her angrily, "-I mean part-plant, and you don't know what leaves are doing when they turn brown?"

_They're yellow!_

"They fall off the branch, I know. I was asking what else they do. I doubt that I will suddenly lose my ears and tail," I said sarcastically. "Did you really think that I didn't know a thing like that? I used to speak with the plants, so I learned a few things about them."

"You speak with plants?!" she cried out in shock "You really are crazy!"

"No no, It's not like that, like with you and me. I just don't know what else to call it, it's like learning something from nothing. Like I'll get information that some flower will soon bloom and turn red or some tree will lose it's pinecones." I quickly explained to the surprised espeon, realising that it had to have sounded really silly.

"Okay, but if I ever find you talking to bushes, trees or anything leafy, I will invade your mind and put you back to normal!" she warned me, but calmed herself. "But back to your leaves, I think that they will just turn green with time. Do you feel any different when they are yellow?"

"I can't absorb the sun's rays as easily, as usual, is all," I answered, checking if I could move them normally, which I could. I noticed that from a den a fair distance from us walked out a dark, blue-ringed creature.

"I see that you woke up," greeted Serge as he approached us, speaking in his typical harsh tone which was more fitting for threats and insults than mornings greetings.

"And I see that someone is awake when he should be sleep," I replied, trying to imitate him but I wasn't even close to his tone.

"The more I sleep, the more I snore," he said and sat down on the grass. "And not every umbreon is nocturnal."

"Uh, really?" asked Cera as she looked at Serge with curiosity.

"No, only the newbies who don't know how to change their habits yet," Serge denied and smiled, but that wasn't enough to convince me that he was fine during the day. I saw his squinted and tired eyes, they were slightly red, not as much as normal umbreons but also not his usual bright yellow.

"You won't deceive me, Serge, I can see that you are unhappy during the day," I said calmly; I didn't want to see him like that.

"Fine, you caught an umbreon on a lie. Yes, I hate mornings; it's so fucking bright everywhere. I felt as if the sun was trying to burn my eyes; and without the darkness, I feel so... exposed," admitted said dark-type, giving up on trying to not show his dissatisfaction.

"Heh, is our scary umbreon so shy that he can't stand others seeing him?" taunted Cera as she giggled, but Serge didn't give her any attention, focusing on me.

"I only wanted to check on you, even if Cera says otherwise. It was my position and me that affected you. I can recognise my own abilities, y'know. Sorry about it, how you feel now?"

"I've had better days, but I am fine now, I'll just be different colours for a while," I replied and got a nod from him. "Go to sleep now, Serge."

"I will," he said, standing up and walking back to his den.

"He had another guilt trip?" asked Cera when the blue-ringed umbreon was too far to hear us, even with his much better than any other eeveelution's ears.

"Yep," I affirmed. "Something happened on the hunt, as always. And as always, I don't really understand what it was."

"Umbreons are one giant army of sadness, just wait until some of them turn crazy," stated Cera, surprising me with how she thought about our friend.

"Don't think like that; it is just part of their type. Instead of blaming them for it, we should help them to control it," I advised, looking in Cera's almost blue eyes. "Serge just needs to talk with someone to help him feel better, I bet that there are umbreons around here that have a lot of trouble with cheering up."

"I never feel good when there is an umbreon nearby, the way I sense them with my psychic power gives me a headache. As if I had something heavy on my back," said Cera, and I heard some regret in her voice that she felt like that around our friend, that she was uncomfortable around him. "Maybe you are right."

"Opinions are like asses; everyone has their own," I repeated what Serge said me. Cera's ears tensed, and she looked at me curiously.

"Who said that?" she asked.

"Serge," I answered and actually felt lucky that I didn't have to say that this was mine.

"Yes, that fits him, but you, not so much. Don't learn too much from him, okay?" She warned me and made her way to her den. "Meet me before sunset at the river okay? I have a nice place to show you."

"Sure, I'll be looking forward it," I answered as she gracefully walked out of my view. I was still sitting when it came to me, one, highly important fact which just happened. Did I really just ask her for a date? Or rather she asked me. And I agreed, well that was good, since I wasn't aware of what she meant and I couldn't say something stupid if I didn't know that she was asking me out.

I stood up and with a smile on my face, I started aimlessly wandering through the pack area. Some of the eeveelutions I passed by were cocking their heads, seeing me stupidly smiling to myself, but I couldn't help it, I was just  _happy_.

My happy trance disturbed some other jolteon who instead of just staring, crossed my way.

"Hi, Czar was it? I wanted to thank you for your help yesterday and... weren't you greener?" blabbed fastly female jolteon.

_What was her name? She missed mine but it would be nice if I would remember hers._

"Hi, Nevia what you are doing here?" I greeted her making a step back as he walked a little too close to me.

"Well, it's Navia, but anyways I live here! See it's my den right there," she pointed at the nearby dark entrance. "I just wanted to thank you; you really helped me yesterday Czar and I haven't had any occasion to do it before now!"

"Zar," I felt that I could correct her if she corrected me. It was a real surprise to me where her den was, it was almost the centre point of the clearing where our pack was living, how did a one-day old jolteon earn one of the most important places for den? "How did you get this place? It's almost in the centre, and you just evolved yesterday!"

That would mean that I was speaking with the second or maybe third most powerful pokemon here, only Sogot could be more powerful.

"It is my parent's den, as you pointed out, I just evolved so I haven't moved out yet," she said unnaturally fast for everyone but jolteons. More experienced electric types weren't even 'wasting' time for making a sound, instead communicating by sending small discharges. She calmed me a little though, I always felt some pressure when I was talking with other eeveelutions, maybe not stronger than me since it was really hard for me to find someone weaker than me, but with someone who had a 'position' in the pack. Like Cera, I never could force myself to treat her normally, I was always watching my words and behaviour when I was close to her. I just couldn't be fully comfortable with pokemon like them.

"What do you think about going somewhere together in the evening? I can take you to a nice place in return for your help," Navia proposed happily. And I would almost agree but I stopped at just the last moment.

I was already busy, I couldn't miss my meeting with Cera. Not because Navia wasn't attractive, I never truly lied that I prefer jolteons, with their spiked fur, yellow colour and energy... but I knew Cera much longer and even a blind pokemon would see that the espeon was trying something. The problem was that; if I said no to Navia, she might feel bad, and it was a male who was supposed to ask for a date. If female asked first and the male declined, she may think that there was something wrong with her and this could make her miserable. But if I said yes, I couldn't go with Cera and the situation would repeat, maybe she wouldn't even look at me again because I just stood her up. How did this even happen? I am one of the weaker males in the pack and I have to choose between two females! It was against every rule!

Every possible choice was bad, I doubted that any of the 'maybe another day' or 'I am busy today' lines would work, I knew that the pokemon I was talking to wasn't stupid enough to believe such cliché words. Not only because Navia's parents were really powerful and certainly taught their daughter how to be smart, but just the way of her facial expressions, the set of her ears and look of her dark violet eyes. I would also judge her from the movement of her tail but jolteon's tails seemed to vanish. Really, where did a jolteon's tail went? Is it hidden somewhere under their spikes, or did it just disappear? How did she even keep her balance without it? I couldn't understand it since my own was long and broad, allowing me even to stand on only my two back legs for a few seconds.

But back to my problem, I didn't want to hurt Navia in any possible way but at the same time, I didn't want to say anything that could ruin my meeting with Cera. But on the other paw, maybe she wouldn't mean a date but just 'thanks' and saying that I already had a meeting with Cera wouldn't be a bad idea. I noticed lately that Cera wanted me in her environment more, but Navia was just a jolteon I met and I didn't know anything about her. Yet, she was inconceivably attractive. I was so lucky that jolteons aren't psychic and can't read all these thoughts. But what if Cera looked in my mind and found out everything that I was thinking? Nah I was worrying myself too much, she never did that.

"Sooo? Would you go with me?" Navia repeated the question and I panicked, what I was supposed to answer? Yes? NO! Maybe? Maybe I should ask Serge? He is good in internal fights with desires, but he is not HERE! Why can't that blue ass be where I need him?! He just shines his rings randomly in the night, say his problems and disappears until he would need something again!

"ehawaeh," I finally said. It wasn't the brightest thing I've ever said, I would even say that after such a long train of thoughts I expected more from myself than some random sounds. If I remembered how Cera said I sound it, I needed to sound more like 'eofealon' anyways, which made me feel even more stupid, not to mention the idiotic smile I had on my face since I was invited on the date by Cera. Maybe Navia lost already any interest into inviting me anywhere? But even if I was going through a real marathon in my thoughts, it didn't even pass a second as Navia asked me to go with her 'somewhere'. I also noticed how similar her invitation was to Cera's. To go to some interesting place, not mentioning a fact that I knew every interesting place around since I was a leafeon. I noticed both of them had a habit of saying ' I want to spend a few moments with you'.

But maybe she didn't want it at all and it was only my insane imagination telling me 'you have a chance, boy'. Maybe they really did just want to take me to some place because they thought that I never saw anything interesting in my life or that I was some bored plant pokemon and I would enjoy a place filled with other plants. It always made me angry when someone thought about me as some kind of plant. Plants were incredibly stupid and limited. Grow and absorb was all that they ever thought of, occasionally other things appeared like 'grow new leaves' or 'make a cone'. But what did that have in common with me? Was I growing? Creating new leaves, cones, fruits, anything? No! I was an eeveelution just like any other, not popular since I was the only leafeon, but always one of them. But there was still a jolteon before me who still waited another second for the answer and, according to how this type usually worked, she could be already irritated. But her facial expression showed no irritation, but rather a curiosity. She had raised ears.

_Is she posing or does she always look so good?_

But no matter how good she did look, Cera was what was making me, well, simply said, excited more. Even if an eventual relationship with the newly evolved jolteon had more sense since there was no traditional 'strong for strong, weak for weak' problems, I still wanted to go for the hardest one. I didn't want how to name it, maybe a green desire? Since umbreons had their own dark desire, then I had my green desire, my desire to try my connection with Cera and who knows, maybe build something with sense.

"I already have plans to meet with someone tonight," I said to the jolteon before me and I immediately noticed what I was afraid of. She didn't move at all but she looked as if she shrunk, she didn't look nearly as confident as she had before. Was she already feeling hurt or rejected? Maybe it wasn't just 'showing some places', and she really meant what I didn't want to her to mean. But I couldn't agree to it no matter how bad I would feel and now knowing how she felt I wouldn't enjoy any moment with Cera because I would remember what it had cost for me. What was wrong with this day? I was a walking failure, yet I had choices like this. Maybe it was because I felt like a failure and wanted to help others who felt the same?

"Okay I understand," Navia said putting her invitation aside. "Well, at least, I can wish you a nice evening then."

"Thanks," I said and walked away from her. Her wishes completely didn't make me feel positive about my evening meeting, but what I could do?! Every choice would be bad.

I didn't even move far from the spot where I was speaking with Navia when another familiar voice disturbed my thoughts.

"Hey, do you know Navia?" asked a familiar looking vaporeon who I really couldn't name right now. "I saw you two talking. Could you... help me a little? Since I saw her yesterday at the river, I can't stop thinking about her, could you, maybe, introduce?"

_This was already too much for one day._

But maybe I should help him, maybe Navia still has a chance to have an enjoyable evening.

"Okay, I can help. She still should be nearby," I said making a turn but that vaporeon who couldn't swim didn't follow me. "Are you coming?"

"What? No, we can't just go to her!" he said and he sounded as if he was scared. Or nervous maybe?

"Why not? She was sparking yesterday but today she seemed to be safe," I was confused by his behaviour, seeing his flat ears... fins? He really looked as if he was scared. I guessed that because of type disadvantage.

"Sparks? No, it is not that, I got hit yesterday in the river, but no one fished me but... is she, ehm, is she aware that I even exist?" he asked sheepishly.

"I don't quite get what you mean," I informed him, turning to him once again. "You want me to introduce you two or not?"

"Yes, I want to, but could we do it in a different way?" he said starting speaking so quiet that I needed to move closer to still hear him.

"Should I bring her here?" I tried to guess what he wanted from me, and I started to feel that it won't be anything quick. "Whatever you want, I am helping you only until this evening, I am busy later."

"I want you to make her aware of me?" he said, but I still didn't get what he meant.

"So, I have to just say that there is some vaporeon, who doesn't swim. Is it what you want?" I tried to guess one more time. To my greater confusion, I noticed irritation on the water-type's face.

"It would be better if you could say that my name is Struga,"-Oh. so that was his name-" and don't mention that I can't swim. I-I will deal with that by myself."

"Will you learn how to swim?" If he wanted to deal with it he should work hard to learn swimming in just one day.

"No, I will just not bring it up," he contradicted. I didn't like this idea, and I still thought that just introducing them to each other would be a much easier and better way, but if Struga wanted his way then I guess I would just follow along.

"Okay, is it anything more what I should know about you, anything that can work to your advantage? Like your origins, family, some abilities or position in the pack?" I wasn't sure if this was really important, Navia didn't seem to be one of those who wanted to mate only with important male sin the pack, but maybe it would work in Struga's advantage later.

"Well, me I haven't done too much yet, but my father is the fourth elder," he said. I was surprised, being an elder was very high and hard to achieve a role in the pack. A number of elders were not always the same, but always there were at last seven of them, one of each type, but not every region had it own individual elder. I was living in the Middle, the eeveelution who ruled the Middle ruled our whole pack. Sogot was the current leader and first elder, but not only of the Middle but also of all flareons in the pack. The Middle was the most important region since it was where almost one hundred eeveelution lived, and the terrain here allowed every type to live here without any bother, maybe exception were glaceons, it was too hot for them here in the season of the sun. All of these regions like Middle, West, East, North and South were Sogot's idea who wanted to have everything in order; typical eeveelutions didn't used to be split into these groups, and of all this region thing was just names. But elder traditions were around much earlier than Sogot or even the leader before him, they had a purpose, to keep a pack from doing anything that could hurt one of the types. Like melting the ice with a flareon's flames in the mountains, it would make vaporeons happy for the extra water, but it would be bad for the glaceons. So there was always seven elders to keep all eight types in... -wait, seven elders but eight types? I had to have missed something.

"Hey, how many elders we currently have?" I asked Struga.

"Eleven? Yes, eleven, why do you ask?" he answered easily. If his father was one of the elders, then Struga probably knew everything, important or not, about our rulers.

"And how many type-elders?" I precise my question.

"Seven, I still don't know how this can help us get Navia's attention," he answered me once again, hitting the ground with his long tail. It was a sign of curiosity connected to worry, if he would only move his tail up and down it would be only curiosity and if he would hit the ground harder, it would be only worry or even fear. Even if I saw signs like these, I probably missed a lot of other ones but I would need to be vaporeon to understand him perfectly. These signs were out of control and everyone was doing it impulsively, the only way to learn them was to ask some other type for 'translation'. I was much better reading umbreons, where I needed to watch their rings shine, and espeons; in psychic types it was important to pay attention to the split ends of their tail and a lot of psychic stuff too, but all I could see was a tail movement. Funny that I didn't know any signs of leafeons, since every time I tried to focus on my instinctual moves I stopped doing them. All I learned was that it was something connected to my leaves fluttering and curling. I guess I needed to wait until I met another leafeon to learn them, or maybe I would just know them as soon as we met?

"There are seven type-elders, but-but there are eight types! Where is the eighth elder?" I asked, believing that his knowledge allowed him to answer me.

He was thinking for a while; he calculated something on his claws and it was something really big since he needed to use his claws from all four paws.

"Eh, I guess you are not a type then," he spoke finally.

"What you mean?"

"Leafeons don't have an elder, so they are not considered as another type," he tried to explain but it was making me even more confused.

"What do you mean? Am I not another type?" I asked.

"Look, I am not a specialist but do you know what you are? All that everyone knows is that some old vaporeon reminded herself about creatures known as leafeon once, but no one knows your weakness, abilities or type. Could we return to Navia please?" he spoke fastly and repeated his move with his tail but this time he hit the ground harder.

"You were there?!" I squealed as I heard him mentioned the night of my evolution.

"My father always brought me everywhere when something was happening in the pack, he expects me to replace him as elder some day so I was there. But please! I have talked enough of the elder's things," he said, and I decided to let it go. Cera for sure would know more and would be more helpful. Plus if I success into helping him to meet Navia I was sure that Struga will help me too.

"Okay, I am going to her and if you still don't want to go with me then wait here," I said, and as I didn't see that he wanted to go with me, I moved alone back to where I was talking with Navia. As I was walking, I started to think how to even start making her aware of Struga's excitement and not make it sound stupid or forced. Also, the fact that our talk didn't end so happily was making it harder.

_Just do it, Zar, the evening will compensate every effort which you do today. Or I hope it will._

I didn't see Navia in the place where I saw her last time, why I even though that she would be still standing here, she probably had something better to do. But now I had to find her, looking for paw steps wasn't a good idea, there was a lot of eeveelutions steps here and I was completely oblivious to anything connected with tracking. Serge was good at it, just like any other umbreon, but he wouldn't be awake in the middle of the day to help. I wasn't sleeping last night because of him so I thought that I could use some of his help and wake him up for the moment. Tracking someone in the pack would be rather easy for him.

Feeling the calling of my mission, I went to umbreon's den, which wasn't that far away. Living in the centre has a lot of advantages but I thought that fact that everything was so close to each other was the most useful. Not that I had a long road to my former den, it was still one and the same clearing.

When I stood before Serge's den, I met another problem. The room I was in last night was just the first room of his den and it was already was so dark that I didn't see anything. But Serge was sleeping much deeper under ground so nothing could disturb him. I didn't know how deep underground dark-type tunnels were or what their configuration was either. I tried once or twice to reach Serge, but going in there alone never worked out, and I always got lost until said umbreon woke up and found me. Not that his den was so big, I was just so blind in the dark that I just needed to go in one dark room to have problems with finding an exit. Screeching back of my left ear with my left, back leg I decided that I wouldn't go in there. I wasn't sure when Serge would wake up and guide me back. And I just reminded that he was still awake in the morning so I would be late to Cera for sure.

Yelling also wouldn't work, I could yell straight in the ear of that umbreon and he would still be asleep. It made me wonder how his hearing worked since he heard much more than I did, but I never missed someone screaming to my ear. I shook my head in discomfort. I even felt a pain in my ears just thinking about that.

I looked around with the hope that I would see any willing to help umbreon but I didn't see any. I was on my own.

_Where could a jolteon go?_

Not to the river, that for sure. In the centre, I also didn't see her. Maybe she visited some nearby region? It wasn't that far away, I could check two of them before the evening, but to which one I should go? Maybe north and east? It was a more usual place for jolteons than the opposite direction. It was still possible that she went somewhere further since there is more than just middle and four regions around it.

There were a few well-known locations in each region. The Flame's Yards, far at the south where the desert had it beginnings, but because of the temperature there, it was a place only for flareons. Currently, ten maybe eleven flareons lived around. The same with Thunder Crest, farther on the north, populated by jolteons. Thunder Crest actually had no dens around or few jolteons who would live there for long, as it wasn't in their nature to stay in one place for too long. But jolteons from time to time were going there to touch these weird black stones which were pending from the ground. These stones had electrical energy inside, and when there was a storm in the sky, some lighting would always hit these stones, attracted to their energy. All that I knew about it was that I should never ever touch these stones. But jolteons were doing it very willingly and when some of them touched them, they became extremely hyper and "charged", and usually irritating. I did have to admit that some of their lighting bolts sporadically sent into the sky were really impressive, though.

The furthest place where evolutions lived was far in the mountains which isolated us from the world which Serge called the Human's World. On the White Slope, it's part of the mountain where there is always snow, and there in the frozen land lived glaceons. They waited for winter, so they could come back to the main regions and bring their stories with them. White Slope was the only part of the pack which is connected to the rest of world, a place where Glaceons would meeting other species of pokemon and later, in the winter when all other eons were hidden in the warm dens while glaceons took their watch of the pack, they would tell us what weird things they saw. My friend and Serge's mate, Lissandre, she was usually the one who told us what she saw. She evolved one winter later than Serge and just as she returned from her first session of the sun which she spent on White Slope, she was telling how she saw creature walking just on two legs, almost without ears and paws able to grab things. I was still an eevee then, quite young, so I would lie if I said that I wasn't scared as fuck. But wait, if I try to imagine this, then, well, I still am scared. Two-legged monsters, it almost like levitating.

The mountains were two days of walking from the middle, but Glaceons, when it was cold and snowing, could make it in one day. I didn't know how, but they just could.

I caught myself staring at some random tree as I was lost in my thoughts. I also noticed a few eeveelutions and maybe two eevees staring at me weirdly, or maybe was it curiosity? Maybe part-plant eeveelutions which looked at trees seemed to be interesting to others?

Not wanting to be observed, I walked out of their view going to the south region as I hoped that I would find Navia there. In order to get there, I needed to pass the river but as I approached it I saw an espeon at the river bank. The espeon was old, his poor fur wasn't able to cover wrinkles on his backsides and head. He was as slim as a rake, I would almost say that he looked as if he should have died a few seasons ago and he was now only waiting for the end. But maybe with his psychic powers, he would be able to help me in my search.

After a bit of hesitation, I approached him.

"Hello, can I ask you for something?" I said acting friendly and kindly. "If I didn't disturb you obviously."

The espeon jerked and turn his head to me; his short fur on his head had already lost it lavender colour and just as if was cleared by rain, was mostly white.

"Ask then, maybe old Vilastraadat will be helpful for someone today," the espeon answered and it took me a moment to understand that he said about himself in the third person.

_That name, though._

Maybe his psychic connection and hearing others mind harmed his own. If that could be true, he couldn't help me to find Navia but I decided to ask anyway. I hope that Struga that in someday you return all this favour which I am doing for him.

"I am looking for a jolteon, she evolved yesterday, she has a little faded yellow colour of her fur and blue eyes. Have you seen her... physically or mentally?" I asked waving a paw in the air trying to show how Navia looked.

"Are you looking for your lover?" he asked and chortled. "I see, your heart is calling for two, are you sure of your choice young eon?"

"What? No, I am not looking for Navia because I chose her!" I denied.

"Males don't remember the colour of female's eyes but the size of her butt until he feels something more than just friendship. But alright then, why you are looking for her? You are already are involved in this world's scheme so why you won't follow the path before you? Will you make a few steps ahead just to turn back and try another path?"

"Pardon? World's scheme? Paths? I am just looking for a friend," I tried to specify what I want but it seemed that Vilastraadat wasn't listening to me at all.

"Everyone of us is involved in repetitive schemes, all that change is just a 'skin'. What matters? The life of an individual? What is a matter of your life? You were brought to this world by your parents to do exactly the same thing they were doing, to feel thirst, hunger and pain, to have desires and unbelievable wishes. To repeat mistakes of earlier generations and to bring new generations who will do exactly the same. Do you want to break the scheme? You can't, no one can. All that you can do is a change of 'skin', the way how things look like, but in a core, it still is the same thing. Look at our pack today, we have regions, elders, a working society. What was different in the past? I will say to you. Nothing. All of that which was changed was only a 'skin'. Leaders can change but the authority would stay the same, the pack can change but it is still for the same purpose, to survive. All of this is just a repetitive scheme. But is it the wrong thing? No. You or I won't notice it, in a thousand or more years a 'skin' can change to something really important. Skin is the world around us and the world which we are changing. By building a den, by digging a hole or just by leaving a shit somewhere in the forest. You will realise it when your life fades away and see how weak the things you left behind are."

"...Ok," was all that I managed to say. I didn't know what he was talking about at all, but he was just an old psychic type, it could be everything in his head. "I think I will be going then," I said and used a shallow area to get through the river. When I was in the middle of the river, I heard espeon again.

"Your will is your greatest strength and your only chain; I wish you luck, you need this. Don't disappoint me. It would be very sad."

Fuck him, the South region was just a few steps from here, this espeon was really crazy. But it motivated me to move faster. When I stood at the opposite bank, I felt the espeon's eyes on my back but when I looked back, he just smiled at me and I quickly looked away from him.

"Crazy espeon," I mumbled and went into the forest. Dens in the south region weren't like in the middle, grouped in one clearing.

There were just randomly placed between trees; it took me a while when I saw the first eeveelution here. It was a female sylveon, I asked her for the way to the centre of this place and she happily answered me. After another few steps, I was in the crowd of eeveelutions. Not as crowded as in the Middle but still some. Everyone here was moving fast, almost in a run. Parents were carrying young eevees in their muzzles, older eevees wouldn't allow anyone to carry them so they were moving through the crowd screaming insults when someone stepped or almost stepped on them, and I was jostled sporadically.

"Hey, what is happening here?!" I asked loudly, not addressing my question to anyone certain in the crowd of chaos.

"Don't you know anything? The storm is coming and this one is huge, Vilastraadat, the elder of all espeons just said it telepathically to everyone in this morning, did you forget?" some random flareon answered me but at the same time, a powerful wind like a wall of air hit me from the side taking away every leaf and dust from the ground. I needed to make a wider stance to keep balance, but luckily my own leaves stayed in place. The flareon wasn't waiting for my response and ran, probably to his den.

_Did I really forget about the storm? Wait, I didn't get any message!_

In the wave of panic, I kept stepping from paw to paw, not sure what I should do. Then I reminded myself that there was this old espeon on the river bank and he wouldn't manage to get to any den before the storm would arrive. I turned to where I came from and joined everyone around in this chaotic dance. I started running.

Going opposite the earlier direction, I could see a coal-black sky coming out, large and black like a night without stars, with clouds covering most of the sky. Running through the forest full of roots and low branches wasn't an easy task, but to my own surprise, I didn't even stumble in this thicket. It became very dark when I was running in the storm direction and I felt shivers when first thunders came to my ears. There were so many of them, I couldn't even recognise when it was the end of one and the start of another, it was just one loud thunder. When I came to the river, it was already raining and it was too dark to see the opposite bank or it may have been just my blindness in the dark. Without a second thought, I jumped into the river, wanting to be at least in the middle before apogee.

But instead of hitting algae at the bottom of the river I sank completely in the river.

I immediately choked on a mouthful of water and the river's flow pushed took me with it. I was trying to swim instinctively but it was almost impossible in swelling water.

For a moment, I could take a breath, sharp and short. It was raining so heavily that there wasn't much difference if I was underwater or above. I kept trying to swim but I was only swirling with all these waves around. It wasn't long before my limbs become tired and pliable to the waves. My moves became weaker and slower until I almost stopped moving entirely. I needed to fight, but I was too weak, I was trying to force myself to the bigger effort but I couldn't fight a river. I couldn't even keep myself above the water, I had to fight, I need to live,  _ **I want to survive!**_

 


	5. Ch5 'Wilderness and Walking Disaster'

The light of the morning sun woke me up, and I slowly lifted my eyelids just to see clear blue sky above me. Purring and closing again my eyes I rolled to another flank for a more comfortable position on the soft… whatever I was lying on. It had a smell of grass and was nice in touch.

The sun was pleasantly warming my leaves; I wanted to yawn but just as I opened my mouth I started to cough spasmodically, spewing a lot of the water until finally taking one deep breath. I kept lying in a small puddle of water which I created, just breathing heavy.

Slowly I started to remember the events of… yesterday? Maybe it was the same day? I had no feeling of time and was I really lying here with a throat full of water? I caught myself using only my leaves to breathe unconsciously, but I didn't know I could depend on them that much.

I opened my eyes again, stood up and looked around. The thing on which I was standing was looking just like one giant leaf, it was really huge, maybe even three times bigger than my den's insides. The oblong leaf was dark green and had large spikes on its curved sides. It was also vibrating slightly.

I walked to the edge of the leaf and looked down. I wasn't very high above the ground, but the leaf was growing straight in the middle of the river. No, it was a delta, a place where the river paths meet to create a larger river. I walked to the other side of the leaf; here I was much closer to the ground so I decided to jump. But my legs were still weak, so I landed hard on my face and stomach. I ended up laying there for a while waiting for the sudden pain to fade away.

Sitting up slowly, I stared at the giant leaf. I had never seen a plant like it before, I was very lucky the thing just happened to be growing in the middle of the river and caught me. The leaf started to become darker just as I was looking at it. Soon it changed, with wide holes in its blade, and the whole plant began to look ill. Suddenly and without any warning, it collapsed and disappeared in the water.

"Weird plant," I summarised, quietly mumbling the words under my breath. I noticed that the top of my own leaves had returned to their typical bright green colour. What I didn't notice earlier was a familiar landscape or at least a familiar horizon covered by white mountains. The environment and smells were completely new to me. I tried to not panic yet, though. I was going with the river flow, so all that I needed to do was to go in the opposite direction and I would be in a home in no time!

But I missed my meeting with Cera! Would she yell? Bite? Telepathically shout at me? Or telepathically bite? Maybe everything at once? Or would I be completely ignored? I didn't know what was worse. Maybe I shouldn't go back too fast so she would worry and wouldn't be angry?

There was a delta before me and I didn't know which river was 'my' side of the river.

"Arrrg, why does there need to be two rivers?!" it irritated me even more. Another fact that irritated me was that my choice didn't even depend on me, since I was on the left bank of the river and didn't know if these waters had a shallow area to get to another bank. Being angry, I continued my walk.

The beach here was quite long and broad, almost like the lagoon in my home. The forest seemed to be very thick and scruffy; they weren't so comfortable to walk like narrow patches in the forest of my pack. I noticed some strange burned marks on some trees. It looked just as if this was a patch of some flareon who hiccoughed.

As I walked farther, more marks become obvious. Soon I started to pass trees burned to the ground. Even further, there were completely empty fields covered only in the dust of burned plants. This sight made me feel uncomfortable, sad and a bit alarmed.

"Calm down Zar, it's just a leafeon thing," I said it to myself, but I wished that there was someone else here who could have said it to me. Speaking to myself was also a bad sign, but come on, I wasn't alone even a day yet! I'm not that crazy. Serge would sometimes stay alone for weeks and was still pretty normal. Or at least, I think he is…

My ears perked up as I heard a sound coming from my left. I rapidly looked around to find a place to hide but the environment was burned up and close to barren. The river was the only place I could hide in. I jumped into the water but not too far from the bank. I could stand at the bottom and have my head above the water. Forcing my ears to lay flat against my head and trying to be as invisible as possible with my eyes and nose above the water, I kept a lookout. Having my ears flattened I couldn't hear properly but I saw five creatures coming over just like me earlier, alongside the river bank. All of them were keeping a distance from the water as if they were afraid that something would jump out at one of them.

None of them was eeveelutions. Was it possible that other species could cross the mountain? Or… or maybe it was me who crossed the mountain? It would make more sense since I don't remember any delta of rivers near the pack. Where was I then? And more importantly, how do I return home?

The five unusual pokemon were already much closer to me; I surprised myself with how far away I was able to hear them. Maybe they were able to hear me too?

Three of them were quadruped and one was enormous in size, an orange canine creature covered in black stripes. Even if he was much bigger than a flareon he seemed to me to be similar. It was probably because of the large bushy tail and collar of thick fur going around his neck.

Walking next to him were two pokemon similar in size and build, but they were more feline, with a much larger collar of fur, I think I should call it an orange and red mane.

The other two were freaks. It walked on two short, compared to the rest of his body, legs. It has round body in red and orange colouring and head with a short beak. His forehead looked like a mooned ass or maybe it was a real ass? Ahh, what am I thinking? A creature can't have a butt on its head; how would that work?

I never met species other than eons before, so it was the first time I'd seen a thing like that, especially these two-legged monsters, which were hauntingly terrifying. From their colouration, I guessed that they were all fire types. Liss would never talk about fire-types near the mountains, more about how the glaceons were trying to take new territory, or big-headed absols, or pillaging the swinub's food or sometimes horrifying groups of sneasel. There was a lot pokemon living in the mountains or trying to cross them. The pack always managed to defend its grounds, there were no species which could defeat the group of pokemon able to use seven different elements. I never needed to fight, as long as I live, I didn't have a chance to really fight for my life. I usually felt pride that I was part of the pack but if I think about it, other species do not really need to like me. Considering that I was not that far from my home and they knew about the eon pack.

In the meantime, the five fire types passed next to me and not even looked in my direction. Luckily they didn't hear me when I heard them, but the size of their ears couldn't even be compared to mine.

They walked almost to the edge of the burned ground and then stopped as if they would be waiting for something. Then one of the buttheads stepped forward and spat a burst fire on the still-living plants.

It was just as if I heard a scream of hundreds in my head, I started shivering and it wasn't because of cold water. Plants couldn't feel a pain, but I could, and just seeing this devastation of nature I felt terrible, or maybe it was because of this weak connection which was telling me what some plant need.

Other four pokemon joined shooting fire but I didn't want to look anymore, using distraction I walked out of the water and run away, and keep running until my limbs grew weak again and environment changed from a burned ground to more rocky place. The river to my right became a broad and large lake, the opposite bank was grown in canes, on the beach in which I was, were large and sharp stones. I was a little overheated by running so I once again today wetted myself in the water. The water was transparent, very cold. I wasn't going to deep and quickly returned to the beach. I lied down next to the one of the stone to dry off my fur. Unfortunately, I lied down in the shadow, forcing me to stand up and mumbling about my inattention I walked around the stone to the sunny side.

Right there where I wanted to lie, someone was already lying. I froze just I saw this thing, it was pokemon, only a little larger than me that for sure but it looked like a furred concentration of scythes and blades. On its four pawns, it had three claws, half of my leg length. Every blade was in a dark blue colour. But at the second look, I noticed that this pokemon was beaten. It was hard to notice because of a thick amount of white fur but I saw some red wounds under it. The creature didn't move, it didn't seem to notice me but it was because I came from behind of it.

I wanted to quietly return to another side of the stone, but if I try to hide, then this creature may try to find me, but if I show myself, it wouldn't have to look for me. It was always better to be the one who strikes than the one taken by surprise.

Taking one deep breath I decided to show myself and I slowly walked around the white creature and I found out that this was asleep. Maybe because of these wounds? The wounds were quite fresh, maybe it passed out or lost too much blood?

Now I knew that I couldn't walk away, not when I knew that I could help. I just hoped that this thing won't kill me when I heal it.

Staying for a while in the sun, giving a while to my leaves and healing abilities to prepare, I focused and started healing. Or at least making pain less noticeable. As I walked closer to this creature my nose attacked strong odour of musk. After some healing, it should be washed, but I didn't plan to do it. Not too much of this help, I won't be washing a random pokemon I just met. Especially those who I couldn't even touch without being cut.

Making myself comfortable on the ground I started exhaling helpful, slightly yellow pollen. It stunk as always, but I bet that Cera would say that it smells lovely. Maybe I didn't like my own smell? What smell could I consider as nice? Flowers weren't bad, but I wouldn't consider them as pleasing, just neutral. Maybe a strong and wet breeze from the river in the morning, just before the sun appeared, when its glow was already visible. Maybe it was more than just a scent, but I thought that was something that I would be willing to feel.

Focusing on my patient, I saw that some smaller cuts and wounds had already healed and closed. But this still was one large wound, going across the flank of the white body, which stubbornly didn't want to heal. I stood up and walked closer so the pollen was falling straight at the wound but it still wasn't enough. Also, the wound looked strange, it wasn't made by talons, it was similar to the one I had when I was still an eevee and had jumped into a bush of briars.

I saw that from the wound was draining some strange liquid, and for sure it wasn't blood.

_Poison!_

I was too afraid to touch it; my last experience with poison was quite dramatic and I didn't want to lay unconscious here, next to a creature which may not be friendly.

But I knew now that my abilities may not be enough if I wanted to fight this wound. I needed to find help in nature. What did I need to look for? Plant with thorns and poison.

Considering that quadruped creature passed out walking in one direction, I started looking for the plant. I quickly found the low, thin broken branch and twigs; it was my path. The number of broken branches increased, and I even found whole mowed bushes.

This creature had a lot of blades, maybe it was just like these fire-types which I saw earlier, destroying nature. I really wanted to stay here longer and help these plant to grow again but my mind was telling me that the life of pokemon was more important. Anyway, I hated when someone was considering me as a plant, so I shouldn't do anything that would make them think that this thinking is the correct thinking.

I saw a bush covered in something red, it wasn't blood. I walked closer to inspect the plant. I wasn't sure how it was possible that bush like that could make such wound but that wasn't time to think about it. As I was always doing trying to learn something about a plant, I touched it with the brown part of my paw, watching closely to avoid any thorns. The feeling of connection was different than usual, aside from feeling typical process which plant was doing or feeling what it like or dislike, I felt in it something more. As if in this plant there was another creature, no, not one, ten at last.

I quickly broke the contact. There was something bad with that, something really bad and something with what I had never met, but even in that short contact, I learned what I wanted to learn. Suddenly, I stopped seeing the forest around me as a safe place, forty steps behind me was a plant whose petals were able to neutralise the poison, that's what I learned. Not looking at my environment anymore, I ran as fast as I could, and because I had been running quite a lot this day, it wasn't fast at all. The plant which I was looking for had violet flowers growing on low branches of a young tree. Not even stopping, I grabbed two of them in my muzzle, ignoring my leafeon's instinct which was telling me that I should prepare the tree to lose some flowers. I had never before since I evolved felt so bad in the forest and I wanted just to return to the beach, not only to heal my patient faster, I just wanted to return to the open field.

The thick furred pokemon hadn't moved since I left him, only more of this half-transparent liquid appeared, I jowled the violet flowers in my muzzle and spat it on the wound. I could do it with a paw and tail but I really didn't want to touch this creature. When the milled flowers and strange liquid connected, it foamed and I couldn't see any longer what was happening with the injury, I just believed that it was how it should look and made a step back.

Suddenly the white body jumped from the ground and faster than I could react hit me with its head sending me at my back, impulsively I tried to stand up but then my throat met a very sharp thing on its way so I immediately stopped moving.

What I saw were two almond-shaped, determined red eyes on the blue feline face and large scythe-like horn pending from the side of its head, now inches from my neck.

"Wow," I breathed, "I didn't see this horn earlier."

"If you are able to talk then why you were silent all this time!" it screamed at me, and I felt its blade press on my neck, I already was sure that I had cut. "It doesn't matter any longer; I will free you from the chain of life!"

"What?! No, wait! I am too young to die! I didn't do anything wrong pleeese! " my voice trembled as the fear make my heart beat faster, my thought vanished and the only thing what mattered was a blade too close to my skin.

"What?" it asked, and its press on my neck lightened.

"What?" I answered back since I wasn't sure for what it is asking.

"What did you say? Aren't grass-type only stupid creature not able even to speak?"

"I don't know, I have never met grass-type, what do they look like?" Its paw on my chest was heavy and long talons were looking even sharper from that close.

"Stop fooling me, you are a grass type!" it raised its voice at me but taking its blade away from me examine me with its eyes.

"Am I? Well, I am Zar the leafeon by the way," I greeted it, shortly waving with one of my paws and trying to smile, which wasn't too easy in the current situation. It made the white-furred to stay in place for the longer while.

"What are you doing here?" it finally asked but still pushing me to the ground.

"I was passing and saw you lying here, and you were poisoned so I healed you," I explained myself shortly. "But... why were you cutting so many plants?"

"Cutting? The forest attacked me! All these grass-types, they were trying to kill me! Like any other pokemon here!" it said angrily.

"Sounds bad, but could you let me stand up?" I asked kindly, guessing from the tone of voice that the pokemon above me was female.

"I am still not sure if I believe in anything you said," it answered and annoyed me by this. So I was running around the forest to help her and went through all of my small amount of abilities, but instead of a simple 'thanks', I was tossed to the ground, got a cut on the neck and called a liar, even if I was trying to be nice all this time. But my patience had its limits and if she reaches them, then I didn't know what I would do since I was pinned to the ground and I couldn't do much. At least, I would be glaring.

"So I saved your white-furred ass from poison and healed your wounds but you call me a liar and threatened me with... this curved horn. It's my first time..."-I paused since I didn't want to say from where I was"...outside but I thought that no one would want to kill me after I saved its life!"

"If grass types wouldn't attack me, I wouldn't need to be saved!" she barked, or I just guessed that it was she. I wasn't sure. I never saw pokemon like 'her' before so it wasn't obvious to me. At the closer look, the was much more slender than I first thought. If I would compare her to any eon, only Sogot would be taller but there were few eons that would be more massive than she was. However there was some grace and maybe even some pulchritude in her look, not that I would like or want it. I would like to free myself from her paw which was still lying on my chest, and it wasn't a light paw.

"I really don't know why grass types had to attack some... what are you?"

"You don't even know what I am?" she said raising an eyebrow but now her tone sounded offended. "Heh," she breathed and stopped pinning me to the ground. "Go away, you are not even worthy to be my prey."

I wasn't wasting time and quickly stood up, but I didn't think to just go away. However, it was nice to be able to breathe freely again.

 _Bitch!_  I thought, there was no reaction.

"You are not a psychic type that for sure," I started my guessing what she may be.

"And what made you think that I am not?" she said putting in her words such antipathy that I wasn't sure if going away wouldn't be a good idea, but I stayed or rather started following her as she walked by the lake bank, I wanted to, at least, learn her species and why grass types had to attack her, and where I am, and... generally I had a lot of questions.

"I have my way to check this." She looked at my curiosity as if she would believe me, again. "I have espeon friend," I added thinking that this would be more convincing. It was.

"A grass type, who has a friend from another type? You are really not from here. You should leave, no one likes grass types here," she said going into barks again.

"Well, I really wish I could, but I don't know where I am," I said. "But why does no one like grass types? Is there something wrong with them?"

"They're annoying," she spoke shortly not satisfying my curiosity.

"Eh, is it a reason to dislike this type so much?" I asked.

"Oh shut up finally!" she exploded turning to me. "The is the middle of types conflict."

"You don't like them because they are defending themselves?" I asked surprised.

"No, I hate them because they tried to kill me."

"Uh, so you are a fire type?"

"No, I am the darkness," she said darkly and her face expression went wild, red in her eyes glowed, sharp teeth blinked.

"Wow, you made it almost as good like when Serge is doing it," I praised her.

"What? Who is Serge? What you mean by 'it'" I caught her off guard.

"That face, Serge, he is an umbreon and he was doing it sometimes, too, but his was scarier. I would say that you were close to his, not that Serge would ever able to scare me," I explained reminding how many times Serge actually was able to scare me.

"This really doesn't affect you? But this is an ability, you are a grass type, you shouldn't be resistant to dark moves, even if you already saw it!" she babbled, losing all this artificial pride somewhere.

"Maybe dark moves don't work in the light? Heh?" She glared at me.

"Should I try something different? Maybe a shadow ball to the face?" she proposed sweety. Whatever the shadow ball was I didn't want to try it.

"So you are a dark type? It is not really fit your appearance, you look more like an ice type," I assumed.

"Absol! I am absol if you really need to know that, and I am not ice-type, though I don't mind to be in cold," she spoke and returned to walking across the beach.

So this is how absol looks like, she even fit Liss description. But Liss also said that they can be also in red colour.

"So you are saying that you know some umbreon?"

"Yeah, he is my best friend!"

"Pathetic at least, dark-types doesn't make friends, we live lonely. He lied to you that he is your friend," she informed lapsing into a know-it-all tone of voice.

"In my pack, every umbreon has a friend, at least, he is receptive of happiness since staying only with yourself and your own thoughts it is much easier to be saddened," I said. "Funny isn't it? You could be afraid that someone's words would hurt you but your own thought can drive in depression much easier."

"Oh shut up, what shit are you talking to me about now," she cut me sharply but she didn't say anything more. For the moment I was following her in the silence, but already new thought stroked my mind and I only waited as the absol calmed down.

"What were you doing in this forest? I mean, you said about this conflict and that grass types attacked you and all, but what I saw were cut plants, not pokemon," I said, and I was very glad that it was just plants, they could grow again, pokemon couldn't.

"They are not showing themselves; they use the plant as their weapon, the forest should be avoided now," she spoke not looking back, currently I couldn't see the forest since we were passing by a tight crossing between a high cliff and the lake. Even if the crossing was stable, some larger water waves could reach my paws, which was rather a pleasure and I didn't mind. The absol that didn't find it necessary to tell me her name, as opposed to myself, was trying to avoid the water.

With fur like hers, I would be trying to avoid water too, it probably took a day to dry.

"So if the forest is dangerous then, why did you enter it? Falling into a trap is, well, unlucky, but going into danger consciously is very stupid," I said trying to stop following her behind and walk side by side, but the narrow path made it impossible and I only splashed water around trying to get faster.

"I am an absol, we are brave and I won't be scared by some moving plants," she praised, but still not giving me more attention. It was very uncomfortable to speak with someone's back who doesn't put any interest in their words.

"Aren't stupidity and bravery the same thing, and you just call it bravery when you succeed and stupidity when you fail? And you... didn't succeed." She had stopped for a while before she turned, not to me, but to the wall of the cliff, and in a few seconds climbed to the top of it, disappearing from my sight.

"Hey! Are you just going to leave me here?" I shouted at the edge of the cliff but there was no response. Maybe I could be a little annoying, but I was far away from home in a place which I didn't know, so I thought that I could ask some questions. Or maybe I was asking the wrong pokemon, Liss was telling me that absols are not friendly, rather lost in their own pride, creatures whose goals are a great mystery. This absol's goal was a mystery to me too, if she was a dark type and only fire and grass types were fighting then what did she want to achieve here? Maybe she cared the about fire-types? Or maybe there was something different, something which would 'fit' the kind of dark-type which she thought every dark-type should be?

The cliff had ended, and my road turned once again on a flat sandy beach, and with it, the sight of the forest. But should I be afraid of the forest? Learning that I was grass type wasn't something very surprising, I thought that it would be hard to be different type then grass-type with leaves like ears and tail. It was more like confirmation of what I knew or what I had guessed.

So at least in theory, the forest shouldn't hurt me, assuming that local grass types would look only at the type, not at the species. I decided to try it and I walked among the trees. If something would go bad, I would just return to the lake and return to following its bank. Being already lost had the advantage of that I couldn't lose my way. The forest was dense but the plants weren't old, it was weird, how everything could be so large and young at the same time? It looked as if this forest had suddenly appeared yesterday in the form which I currently saw. I could notice it, seeing the colour of fruits and feeling it, that these plant hadn't aged many years or even weeks. Maybe was it caused by grass-types which somehow could make plants that don't get old? I thought like that until I saw that parts of the ground were covered by the ashes.

It was all distortion, the forest that was burned had grown again in no time, but the plants shouldn't be forced to grow quickly, it was too unnatural. I saw what was happening here, fire types are burning the forest to the ground because they can't enter it, but the forest is growing back just in the next day.

"The world is weird," I mumbled. Could it force pokemon to kill each other, to create conflicts? Was it because of the difference between them, or was it something different? Not that I had never seen pokemon fighting, in the pack there were conflicts too, it wasn't possible to make everyone think the same. But it had its limits, here these limits were broken or maybe they didn't even exist from the start. Conflicts have a nasty tendency to teach those who have them how to avoid them in the future, maybe in my pack, everyone already learned how to live peacefully but locals still had it ahead.

But it was just me and my thinking, trying to orientate myself in a situation which I had to face. I still hoped that I would be able to avoid it somehow but I was lost, I didn't know where to walk. To make things worse, it started raining.


	6. Light of Midnight

The rain increased, I was lying between the roots of a tree with a huge, trembling crown, curled in the tightest possible ball under the leaves. My fur smelled intense, filling the air around with the sweet aroma. The tree wasn't good protection against the water and even here, the rain could reach me. I kept my waterproof tail to cover me from the shower, but the wind was changing often, and with it, the direction of the lashing rain. I would keep protecting myself with leaf-tail but I couldn't fight against the coldness brought by the rain and wind. It got really cold, as my fur was getting wetter and wetter, so every wind blow was feeling colder. With time, the ground watered too, and started to share its coldness with me. I was freezing, I was freezing from the tip of the nose to the rear knee, I hadn't enough sense in my tail to say if it was freezing too, but seeing how thin it was I shouldn't have a doubt that it would be even colder than every other part of my body.

I wasn't bothering myself with the tail or the rest of my leaves, these more plant parts of me usually were much colder places than the rest of my body. Normally their heat was almost undetectable. Aside from my leaves, I felt the coldness and I couldn't stand it now. There was nowhere to walk but I couldn't stay here, I didn't want to. It took me a while to untangle my legs from that tight ball and finally stand up. The wind quickly took away from me the rest of my heat, as I had kept in a curled position, and now I could say that I was completely wet. I was already tired of keeping my tail above me so I let it fall down. It uncomfortably stuck to my back and head, hiding its green part from my view and only white part of leaf stayed in sight. Being wet and in the shadow of the clouds it seemed to even glow with whiteness, I couldn't keep my eye on it too long or colourful dots would start to dance across my vision. Choosing a random direction, I started to walk through the mud and almost immediately fell to the ground when each of my four legs slipped in another direction causing my belly to meet the ground, hard.

"This weather," I grumbled. "Why does it need to be like that for most of the time?"

With the leaf on my back and the mud on my bottom, I stood up again and, now choosing more stable ground, I made my way through the forest.

It was pointless, I could close my eyes during the walk and just walk ahead. Anything here seemed familiar, I could have even been here yesterday, but I didn't remember anything of the environment. Then my ears caught a sound, not the sound of the wind, undulating, swishing tree's leaves or the sound of tensed wood. It was a voice, a bark.

Not caring if would it be a predator or something more friendly, I ran following the sound of the voice. I stopped for a moment, rotating my ears in different directions and ran again. I slowed down when the source of the voice was close. Now, much slower and completely silent, I crawled under one of the bush to see what was behind it.

It was a predator indeed, two of them, and one of them I already knew. It was the same grumpy absol which I saved before, what was her name? Did she even tell me that?

The creature before her was a mightyena, this species I already knew. A few winters ago a pack of them were passing near the home of my pack and even though this species was known for its aggression, they didn't attack my compatriots.

The two dark-types were standing, facing each other, both of them were in lowered stances and slightly showed fangs. It looked as if they would wait for the other move.

At first look, I thought that if they would be fighting then mightyena wouldn't have much to say versus absol, it was clearly visible that absol was bigger and stronger, owning to a much more abundant number of blades and claws. But on second thought, I noticed how wounded she was, the injuries which I healed opened again, also the biggest and most problematic point appeared. She probably wasn't resting as she should. Now she was probably feeling the pain of it, I judged it seeing how hard it was for her just standing, she was shaking, not like me from the coldness, it was more like an attempt to find a position in which she could have a break from the pain.

She started walking in a circle, keeping her distance from the mightyena. Now I could see that the old wounds weren't the only ones which she had. On the opposite flank, the blood was still flowing out of a long cut, changing the colour of her fur to red and making it stick together close to her skin. She was in the losing position.

The bush in which I was hiding moved slowly forward, it caught me so surprised that I just stayed where I was lying, stopped breathing and just keep watching how the bush was joined in its slow move forward toward the dark-types, which seemed to not see anything by other the bushes. They were so focused on each other, that they didn't notice that environment changed and was actually dragging itself with root forward like some misshaped bug.

The mightyena was the first who saw the weird behaviour of plants, but instead of surprise, he just turned and run away as if he had seen a group of pissed flareons. Absol for the moment was looking at the direction that her foe disappeared As she was still processing what happened, one of the bushes shot out its slender branches, grabbing the dark type's leg. She jumped, or tried to since the bush, like a living creature, dragged her down making her gasp. Then another one started to entwine the white pokemon. She screamed with anger and every one of her blades: the horns on her head, tail and claws, kindled in the dark energy cutting the branches as the absol was wildly struggling in dangerous thickets.

She was able to slice two plants into small pieces before she was immobilised and unable to cut any more; I saw how the branches were slowly clutching the absol and how desperately she was trying to free herself. I couldn't just watch it, I needed to do something, anything!

Without any ideas, as there was absolutely no time to think, I ran to her as fast I could, and bit.

I bit the evil plant and I completely didn't feel bad that I was hurting the plant. But my teeth weren't sharp and didn't cut the branches, also weren't long, so they didn't sink too deep into it, doing no harm.

However, the plants stopped moving and started to lose their colours, just to become snow as white and be dissolved by the rain, leaving me alone with gritted teeth and the absol currently lying motionless on the ground.

I decided to think about what just happened later, and for now, I focused just on the absol. She was still bleeding but I didn't find that she was poisoned like before, one less problem. But it won't be easy to heal her now, I was wet, my leaves were wet and it was still was raining so I couldn't exhale any healing powder.

I tried another idea, lifting my tired tail from my back, I covered absol's body with it and then I just did what I usually do, started to exhale the healing substance. I hoped that mixed with water didn't make it lose its properties and would heal her wounds. Being covered in my leaf, I couldn't see if it worked or not so I tried to keep it longer than I usually do by the airway.

After some time had passed, I lifted my tail and saw that it worked only slightly, but still enough. I did the same with her second flank, it was hard to lift her and put her on her another side, especially on wet ground, but I managed to do it.

"The cave," she spoke suddenly, without opening her eyes or showing any other sight of life. "Over there," she added, pointing somewhere in the forest and trying to stand. I helped her, allowing her to fall back on me, I just didn't expect her to be so heavy, I didn't manage to stand and fell to the ground with the absol on my back. Pushing the ground with all four paws I managed to lift both of us to stand once again, but I felt that she took most of her weight on her own strength. Slowly, we started walking to where she said the cave was. I was supporting other eeveelutions earlier while I was helping Cyrus, but I was rather a light build and couldn't take too much on my back. The absol was far out of my limits, but somehow we manage to get to the cave. The entrance was round, going straight underground. I wasn't sure if I should just jump in there, but then absol just allowed herself to fall into a hole. I heard the thud, it wasn't deep. I followed her underground and was really pleased that I could finally stand in a dry place, without the rain falling on my head or slippy mud under my paws. What I didn't like was how dark it was here and the smell of the cave, it had an intensive odour of musk.

I kept my tail on the absol body when I lied down, waiting to dry off the water. Part of it was absorbed by my leaves, but not much, I guessed that they had enough water already.

I wondered if Cera... and the whole rest of my friends also were having weather like this. Each of them hidden in their den, waiting for the sun, well maybe except Struga, that vaporeon is probably jumping from happiness now. Did they notice that I was missing? It was just a day so maybe I wasn't on their mind yet, but for sure they noticed something. What would they do when they find out that I was missing? Would they try to search for me or wait until I return, even I didn't know where I am, so they wouldn't know where should they look for me. I wish I could be with them, not in the stinking cave with an unconscious self-important absol, why was I even saving her? Last time she almost killed me for it, she didn't even say 'thanks', but I also couldn't just watch what was happening there.  _What did I even do there? I just bit that bush and suddenly all of them became ill and disappeared, but was it just because of my bite?_

I picked one of the smaller leaves from my chest and wrested it. I didn't expect it to hurt so much when the wave of pain filled my mind, it was worse than pulling fur. Gritting my teeth I remain silent, even in this cave I still didn't feel safe.

I bit the leaf to check if it became white too, or at last this part which wasn't always white, nothing happened. I was actually disappointed as I thought that I discover some new leafeon ability, I wasn't sure of the use of it in the future, I doubted that I would have to bite plants all around the pack's clearing, but I really wanted to find something new that I could do.

Suddenly a pain went through my spine and I fell backwards, landing on my stomach as my tail was pulled by something. When I looked back, with an angry glare, I saw that absol made herself more comfortable using my tail as kind of cover. I sat up taking my tail away from the absol and curling it around my legs. Being deprived of the cover she woke up and lifted her head a little.

"It's you again," she grunted and her voice hadn't any happiness in it. "How low I have become if I need to be saved by someone like you."

"I, also, am pleased to see you again," I answered trying to say it at least 'nice', but with her attitude, it was hard to not just yell at her and go away. The problem was that it was still raining outside, she could kill me, and that it was pleasantly warm inside.

"What you want from me?" she asked and rasped. I hesitated with the answer, first because I didn't expect that question, I was prepared for 'go away' but at second thought I had something that I may want from her. I just wasn't sure if she wasn't just messing with me now.

"What you mean?" I questioned. She rolled on another side and I saw that I completely forgot about the injuries on this side, her horn exhaled a harsh sound rubbing against the rocky floor.

"I don't believe in potluck. I was unbeatable until yesterday, but when I could die, suddenly you appeared, a lost grass type from the land far away whose only known ability is healing," she said in doubt. "And then when I am in danger, it suddenly you appear saving me again, don't even try to say me some shit like that you did it because 'pokemon should help each other' or that 'you are helping those which need help'. You need some favour, so save our time and say what you want!"

"But... I don't know why I saved you..."

"Too bad for you, if you don't expect anything then you won't get anything, and get away from my cave now!" she ordered, jumping on her paws, but she hissed from the pain which it caused and lied back on the ground. Cursing under her breath, she tried to stand up again now much slower.

"Don't throw me out please, it's so cold that I would freeze," I pleaded, but part of me still didn't believe in what I heard, how could she just throw me out after I helped her so much.

"Bullshit, it's not even cold," she barked, but lost some of harsh in the voice.

"For you, but not for me, I don't have warming fur," I kept trying to convince her. I rather wouldn't freeze, there wasn't even snow but the cold was guaranteed.

"Until it stops raining, you can stay, but I don't want to see you later," she finally agreed to lie down again.

"Oh, thanks... eh, what's your name?"

"You don't need to know, we won't be talking," she answered grumpily, acting as if she was trying to fall asleep.

"So, how should I call you?" I didn't allow her to fool me with this sudden tiredness.

"Why you care?"

"Just to avoid calling you by your species name, from the place where I am from it is rude," I said, also lying down on the hard but smooth ground. I couldn't find any comfortable position; whatever pose I would take, the ground was pushing hard on my ribs elbow or cheekbone, lying on the leaf also wasn't helpful since it was too flat.

"So-Agaar," she said but with some stumble.

"Sugar?" I asked being unsure.

"I mean, Agaar," she corrected angrily.

"Wow, your parents really didn't like you giving you a name like this," I commented, and she immediately lost all her tiredness and willingness to sleep, jumping on all four limbs but she didn't manage to stand on them too long and with a hiss, she fell to her side, cursing, again.

"If I ever say you my real name, and you will make a comment, I will kill you," she treated me and I regretted that I said something like that. I needed to remember that she wasn't a pokemon to mess with.

"Sorry," I apologised in all honesty and remain silent. But instead of angry silent between us, I heard a chuckle.

"I just played it by ear," said Agaar turning to me, I wasn't sure if I was allowed to answer or if I should say anything, so I kept being silent.

"I mean a name," she added, thinking that I didn't get what she meant.

"Ah," I breathed, iterating that now I understand and she returned to 'sleep'.

"Why are you like this?" I said.

"Like what?"

"So assertive."

"I don't trust you."

"Why, am I so scary?"

"Scary eeveelution, it sounds like an example of an oxymoron. No, because you were able to defeat something that I couldn't, but you still play the 'dumb' and 'naïve' leafeon lost in a dark and deep forest. By the way, where are you from?" Agaar asked.

_Should I tell her? Should I even risk a lie? Serge said that dark-types are best at lying but also at seeing a lie._

"I am from a large pack of eeveelutions, we live in the forest between the mountain and the land of nothing, there is also a curved river and..."

"Yes, yes, I know this place." Did she know? Maybe she would be able to guide me there? Or maybe it wasn't really far from here?

"You have been there?" I asked with hope.

"Yes, I was fighting for territory alongside my pack against some glaceons, I was banished because I lost," she said, a little sad, but quickly returned to her offensive tone. "I am dark-type but I am also absol, I have my honour and I won't kill some lost defenceless kid in my cave, but when the rain stops raining, and you will be in the wilderness, you won't be considered as defenceless anymore," Agaar said.

"I am an adult," I pointed out. Wasn't it visible that I wasn't small brown eevee?

"How old are you then? Eleven or fifteen years old?"

"Years?" Was it some important thing to measure age?

"Ah, yes, I remember, you don't use human's calendar, a year is like time from one winter to another," she explained, talking as if I was completely stupid.

"Well, then I am seven," I answered truthfully.

"Pff, seven, if you would be an absol, you would be still considered a small cub, but what I could expect from species which usually don't live longer than forty," she snarled. "How it is when everyone around is dying so fast hmm?"

"I don't know, I had never seen death." She was really teasing me, didn't she say that we won't be talking?

"How it is possible? In that large of a group someone is always dying," she pushed, it was right, from time to time someone needed to pass away. But not in the way she thought, when an eon hadn't too many years of his life left, then he or she was going away from the pack, usually not alone, but it was a journey without coming back.

"If someone needs to pass, then they go away and we believe that it is just a journey," I answered her.

"So you fool yourselves instead of facing reality? With lives so short like yours there needs to be no space for any worry..."

"Shut up already!" I yelled, and took her by surprise since she jerked slightly. She growled but didn't say anything more, I breathed deeply to calm down a sudden wave of anger, but I couldn't listen to her any longer. She was just like absols Liss described mixed together with dark-types Serge told me about.

I looked at the entrance, at the still falling rain, rhythmically splashing, creating puddles, I wasn't sure now if I wish to avoid rain and stay longer the cave, or go away from Agaar, far far away.

Yet, something was telling me that she was faking it, that under this shield of anger was something different, something that she wanted to hide, or maybe I couldn't accept that not everyone was friendly to each other? I was still comparing her to Serge, he was dark type too and even if Serge's anger never was focused on me, at least not on purpose, he was sometimes similar to Agaar's state of mind, like: 'don't touch me, I am biting'. For me it was like: 'I am sad because I am sad, and I avoid any chance to get over it'.

Maybe she was waiting for something amazing to happen and change her thoughts? Rather no, if her life was longer than mine then she probably learned that you can't sit and wait until this mystical 'thing' will happen, you just need to stand up and make this 'thing'.

Maybe she just had a bad day or two, or week since who knows how many times she was assaulted by bushes, I would just go away when it just stops raining. The problem was that I didn't know where to go and Agaar knew.

I rested my head on my fore-paws, I would decide where to go later, the sky was dark from clouds and the rain instead of getting weaker, only started pattering the ground even harder, well, at least it wasn't storming. I drained off into slumber.

I woke up, but not by myself. It was sounds of groans and mumbles, of heavy breathing and suffering.

I jumped on my legs thinking that dangerous bushes attacked an absol again, but I didn't see them. There was only Agaar, covered with sweat, writhing on the floor of the cave in pain.

"What is wrong with you?" I asked not very kindly because of our earlier talk, but also she disturbed my sleep.

"My head, it hurts so much and it is so cold here," she stuttered, this sudden change of mood made me stay there for a moment not sure what I was about to do.

"Wait, you feel coldness?" I was sure that she said that cold doesn't matter at all for her, plus she was perspiring, it wasn't a sign of freezing. As I walked closer I also noticed that she was shivering.

"Yes I am, I've never felt it before, it is horrible," she said weakly. It was visible that she was ill, again.

"Describe me your pain," I asked inspecting her, she was feverish.

"What I can say about pain? It just hurts!" she wanted to scream, but didn't, finding a strength she came up with a grumble.

"Move on another side," I ordered, I wanted to see this side of which I, maybe not heal, but at least tried to heal. Immobilized, she obeyed and slowly slewed the side full of red, tumid wounds from which was seeping blood coloured pus. She had an infection, an escalated one that probably this caused her fever.

"And what is it?" she asked, as I was looking at her injuries.

"You have..." I paused, wasn't it a trick? If I help her again gratuitously, won't she just insult or maybe even hurt me when she returns to health? I didn't like her, however, I didn't want her to die. Even if her company was irritating, I could sleep in a dry and warm place. But still, my antipathy was telling me to just leave her here.

"So?" asked Agaar, still waiting what I was about to say. "Will you say what is wrong with me?"

"No," I answered. "Not without something back,"

"Oh, why do you need to listen to me now," she grumbled.

"I can heal you, but then you will help me get to my pack safety," I proposed.

"No."

"What? You can die here!" I yelped surprised, was it pride or selfishness which made her decline.

"So? You can die here too without me. But the point is that I can't walk away from this forest just yet. To take you back to your pack as a prize of my life I can accept. But I have still something to do here in this forest," she said, but it wasn't easy for her to focus. "There is my counterproposition, heal me and help me to complete my goal here, and then I will give you the best protection which you can only find to return to your home."

"What is this 'goal'?" I asked suspiciously.

"I can't tell, but it is nothing big, just one day after I will be healed and we can go to your friends." I still didn't like that I didn't know what exactly she wanted from me, but what goal can have a pokemon like her have? I guess that if needed to include something that she couldn't do, because of it, she needed help. Maybe it wasn't anything hard or bad then?

"Okay, you have a temperature, it is because your wounds didn't heal since you were moving too much and open them again. I can heal your wounds, but with the fever, I don't know how to deal, it probably goes away when there will be no more wounds," I shortly answered, not mentioning a less important detail like that I didn't really know what I was doing and hoped that my instincts would guide me. In the past, I've had a fever one or two times and I remembered that it was good to put something cold on the head and warm on the rest of the body. But it was much easier when you were surrounded by eons of every element, than now, when it was only me, not able to give any heat or cold. "Try to touch something cold with your forehead, and don't move, it can sting."

As I warned, I exhaled the same as always healing pollen, I started to think that this is some multi-tool able to solve every, or maybe at least many problems. But now it wasn't painless healing as usually, Agaar hissed and tensed her muscles but didn't say anything. It was good that she didn't stay completely insensitive to this pain, it showed that my ability was working.

_Wait. Shouldn't I clean these wounds before I heal them?_

I didn't think about it earlier, maybe because earlier it was fresh injuries which hadn't time to become dirty but these ones were put to the ground for quite a long time.

There was no way that I tried to clean her, I wasn't even cleaning my friends in the pack, it wasn't allowed and if someone was doing it, that meant close relationship. It wasn't surprising, no one wanted to be touched with the tongue of a stranger.

"Wait here a moment," I said moving out of the cave, she mumbled something like "if I could go somewhere" but was too quiet to be sure if I heard it right. Outside, it was still raining, not as much as earlier but still going. I walked out to find a puddle, it should be somewhere close to the entrance since I heard the rain splashing. I found it, a big round puddle with waves from the rain, water. It was my alternative for licking the absol. I just wanted to pick the water in my leaf-tail when my sensitive ears picked a sound of some heavy steps. I was too close to get away without being noticed so I tried to hide between nearby bushes and tree. A moment later in my view walked a green and blue giant creature, heavy stomping on four short, compared to the rest of the body, legs. He was furless, his naked skin was bumpy and looked very chunky. On its large back, it was caring something that looked like a small tree or large flower.

It seemed that it would just pass next to me, not even noting me, but it stopped, just in front of the puddle and started to drink, really really slowly and loudly, I could hear every its gulps, water splashing from his mouth, rumbles when the water was moving down of his throat and disgusting plop when the water reached its belly. It kept drinking like that ostentatious and sickeningly until there was no water left in the puddle, only then it stopped, licked its wide mouth and continued its walk disappearing from my view but I didn't move yet since I still could hear it.

When its steps weren't louder then dripping of rain around I dared to walk out of my hiding spot. The puddle was empty but even if there would be still some water I wouldn't take it, I needed clear one, not with some saliva.

As I searched around, and I didn't want to go too far from the cave (I wouldn't be able to find a way back) I couldn't find any puddle. That was something amazing and irritating at the same time. Not surprising that Agaar was so aggressive while even plants here were fighting with each other for every drop of water. They were taking more than they needed causing weaker to die. Also, I found some more tracks of this giant creature which, just like the plants around here, was haunting for water. Soon I would need it by myself and because of high competition here I wasn't sure if I find some.

My irritation only rose when I looked at all the ground around the cave and didn't find anything, despite that everything around was wet. I tried another way to get some water, I set my tail in the shape I needed to keep water on it and waited until the rain would fill this.

As I become bored of just waiting, I also started collecting drops of water left on leaves of other plants until I thought that I have enough.

"What took you so long?" asked Agaar in pain when I returned, carefully balancing, trying to not pouring the mustered water.

"Your wounds need to be washed before I heal them, so I found some water," I explained, showing my small amount of water, it wasn't much but I a wasn't used to caring anything with the tail so it seemed to weigh a lot.

"You didn't need to go outside for water, there is water in this cave," she accused angrily.

Seeing the pointlessness of my efforts, I stood in place for a moment before I threw the water on her, she curled up and started to shake even more. She really was ill.

"I will pay you back when I'm healthy again," she warned by tightening teeth.

"Yes, for the healing you will take me back to my home."

"After..."

"After I help you with something, yeah I remember," I cut, continuing the earlier paused process of bringing her back to health, as she continued to shiver, hissing and cursing under her breath. I added some of the sleep powder to my exhaled curative effect and soon calm breathing was the only sound emitted by absol.

"Are you trying to make an enemy from every pokemon which tries to help you?" I asked the sleeping dark-type, I was tired of her negative attitude, yet it seemed that I would stick with her for a little longer.

The only sight that time didn't stop in this cave were the less and less visible wounds on her white flank, and my growing hunger. I didn't know if it was middle of the day or night, the cave was dark all the time, but when Agaar had her mouth shut I could hear that somewhere deeper in the entrails of the cave was plopping some water.

I came to the conclusion that underground water needed to be very cold and could make her feel even worse. The water gathered by me also wasn't warm, but at least it wasn't that cold.

How long has it been? Two days? Two days since I left, or rather lost, my pack and from selfless helped everyone who just asked me, I started to trade someone's life for helping me. It was wrong but necessary, I needed help, and when asking for it wasn't effective, I was forced to do what I could to gain it.

I grimaced at how ridiculous it sounded, but I only had a bad and an even worse chose, I hated choices like this, and every time I was in a situation of this kind, I would prefer to not chose at all. But even if Agaar would say 'absolutely no' would I be able to leave her? Probably not, and probably she knew about it, that's why she wasn't afraid to modify my proposition. Guess no one who has some kind of blade or claw from every side of its body would be afraid of someone who has just leaves.

The further into the cave I was, the darker it was and the less I could see. Following the sound of water, I walked deeper into the grotto carefully putting my paws on the stony ground until I touched, firstly wet stone, later, incredibly cold water. I satisfied my thirst, and regardless of how cold it was I still would feel great again, if I could catch some light. It became even darker outside, I guess it was night right now. I wasn't sleepy, I wasn't even sure if I was tired, even if I wanted to be and feel like this. I walked outside, it wasn't raining anymore but the stars weren't visible, it probably still was cloudy. The air was still foggy, but coldly refreshing, almost like in the home. I breathed deeply and stayed like that for a moment until the coldness penetrated my thin layer of fur and a short shiver ran through my body, I quickly turned around to the cave, but turning my tail made a weird and unusual sound, not thrill, not rustle, not even whizz, something between.

I wanted to hear it again, I moved my tail left, but the sound didn't repeat, I moved to the right, still nothing. I quickly spun around and then I heard it again so I spun again, and again, running around in a chaotic dance, spinning wildly. I reminded me about chasing my own tail, with a difference being that I wasn't even looking at it but listening to the new sound. Suddenly I was disturbed by different, cracked and sharp sound just when my tail hit something hard.

"What are you doing?"

I jumped away turning around in the air just to see Agaar standing there with a rather confused expression on her face. Even if her wounds hadn't disappeared completely, they were healed and shouldn't suddenly open. Agaar also seemed to be in a little better mood, I could judge it by the look of her eyes, even if those almond-shaped, half covered by white tuft and always red eyes seemed to emit anger, they looked good now.

"I was... running," I babbled.

"That was 'running'?" she asked sceptically cocking her head, unfortunately hooking the small branch which was few inches from her curved horn.

_Why do I even have to explain myself to her? But it could be a step forward into a bit more friendly relation with her._

"I just had too much energy and it is quite a nice night today, I also was fighting the cold," I said.

"Nice night? Am I dreaming or did I meet grass type who enjoy the night?" she asked, staring harder at me for a moment. "You really are not sleepy?"

"No, just hungry, is that bad?" I generally felt better during the day, but didn't mind to stay a while in the night, I didn't see much but I usually had a light-friend, umbreon, with me. Maybe now, when I don't have anyone who would light up my path I should care more to not walk in the night?

"Just not usual, grass-types usually seek the light and hide during the night," she said, and seemed to be a bit amazed by me now.

"I didn't know that it is possible to hide from night-type during the night, aren't you able to see everything at night?" I couldn't remember any time when Serge couldn't find me during our games of hide and seek, back when I was still an eevee.

If I think about it now, in these moments, Serge was longer an umbreon than I was now a leafeon, he was really babysitting me, funny how fast things change. Maybe Agaar had some right saying that eeveelutions' lives are short and full of fast changes?

"I am, but it is a different kind of hiding, I don't know every plant in this forest and they are hiding by pretending to be a plant. It is hard to recognise what is plant and what is pokemon then, most of them just look like plants," absol explained, and I thought that her fever passed and started wondering if my pollen had some effect to put others into a better mood. She was dark-type, it was night, she was healthy, and yet she was nicer than before, or maybe it was just a fake or she really could be nice.

"So, how do you feel? Do you feel any pain?" I asked, she looked at her flank as if she forgot that she was even injured, it was a quite typical behaviour to everyone who I healed. They were looking at their wounds as if it could at any moment answer that it's okay. I was asking if she can feel pain, she didn't need to look at her wounds to answer to it.

"Guess I am fine," she said finally. "A bit lightheaded but okay. I think it's a good time to tell you what I want you to help me with. And then I would take you to... whatever you wanted to go."

"But why did you need me to do this 'thing'," I asked before she started explaining anything.

"It needs to be a grass-type, and seeing how you counter other grass-types, you are perfect for it."


	7. Thief of light

Chapter 7 "Thief of light"

* * *

"I don't really get how it's supposed to work," I said to the walking next to me, absol. Half of her plan seemed irrational, impossible to succeed and another half I didn't understand, but probably it wasn't easy either.

"What part of it don't you understand? It is easy! All you have to do is walk there, take one thing and carry it back!" said Agaar, and her irritation rose when I again had some doubts.

"I just don't get how I am supposed to walk into a place which, as you said, nobody has left alive!"

"You are a grass-type like them, they won't attack you and even if they do, you can do the same thing you did earlier," she explained, but this explanation didn't convince me.

"Why won't they attack me? Being the same type doesn't mean that they would welcome me, offering the best sunny spot with a touchy lake." I would think that I hear something so naive of her.

"Why do you think that they are intelligent?" she asked, changing to a less offensive voice. It almost sounded sweet, almost, but I still knew that it was hers.

"Because you are, I am, and I guess that most pokemon are, maybe only the smallest are not," I said and saw that she smiled when I said 'I am' but I left it without comment.

"Eeveelutions are actually one of the smallest," she said, and smiled even wider when she saw my ears flattered in opposite directions. It was a sign of annoyance, but I wasn't expecting her to know that, absols didn't have movable ears. "But if it comes to grass-types, they are stupid like a log to which they are similar. The more similar they look to a plant, the more stupid they are. But how different could they be if all they have to do to live is lie in the sun? They won't see that you are new here."

"How did you learn that?" I asked.

"I am guessing, discussion over, we arrived." The place we arrived was where the forest became really thick, it was like a high wall of greenery covering a place where grass-types had to have their nest.

"So just as we planned, you go look around, return, guide me safely inside and repeat until we find 'it'" she reminded. Agaar didn't know what 'it' was called or what it looked like, but she was convinced that if she could see it then she would recognise 'it'. "I will help you with the first step," she offered and prepared her blade to cut the thickness of plants.

"Don't!" I warned impulsively before she could even touch the defenceless leaves, she stopped but looked a little irritated.

"What?!" she barked.

"You don't need to mow the way, I can just go through them and grass types can 'feel' that you cut plants so nearby to their nest," I fastly blurted, getting a confused and questioning stare. "If you cut them then they would know about it, you said that it's at the centre of this forest. Because of it, every grass-type can be very sensitive to this place. Also, it wouldn't be very convincing, even if they are as stupid as you said, they could be suspicious why a leafeon is mowing his way."

"Why do you think that they can feel it?"

"Because I can, and I am not really over-plant-protected or sentimental with this place."

Absol however, instead of the backing away from the plants, started to poke them.

"You feel it?" she asked.

"I didn't mean touch, only dryness, illness or death! It can tell me what some plant needs, how it can be used or what plants I can find around."

"It can tell you what is around? How accurate usually it is?"

"Uh, quite accurate, I wasn't using it too often but it never failed me, why are you asking?"

"Try to use it and find these pokemon! Gah, why you didn't say it earlier, it could save us a lot of time. We don't even need to split, just use this... green vision," she said hurrying. "I want to cut them anyway, I don't want to squeezing through them."

Considering that her wounds, even healed, were still fresh and could cause some pain if touched, I could understand that she wanted to avoid it.

"Doesn't matter, stay quiet now, I am focusing," I answered and like yesterday, I tried to reach the plants under my paws, entering a broad web of connections with thousands of thousands living parts of forest's greenery. There were also these strange appearances, the same which scared me when I was looking for the cure trying to heal that poison. But now I didn't back away, I thought that these appearances could be actually other connected grass-types. They weren't anywhere close, nor on the way we wanted to go. It appeared to be a bit unexpected for me since I thought that we are going to some highly guarded place, forest's heart and sanctuary. I wasn't sure what I was expecting but something impressive, build by many generations of local grass-types, a large clearing with thick grass, covered by outspread tree's crowns. Something like that, something that would need protection but it looked like our way was just clear, so I started guiding.

But as it was much easier to follow Agaar than guiding by myself, it was still the night. Admittedly, the moon when it is larger provided some light, but where the plants were growing thicker, darkness was hiding everything.

"Move already!" growled Agaar.

"I can't see anything," I explained away, getting an annoyed sigh as an answer. She moved ahead again, nudging me offensively in the process.

"Say which way and if you would feel anything, warn me in time," she barked, I agreed by a nod.

"Ahead and little to left."

We weren't talking more, just going, it would be very quiet if Agaar wouldn't be grumbling, growling and cursing when some random branch hooked against her fur, touching and irritating her fresh healed skin. I couldn't keep a connection with the environment all the time, it was too exhausting, only from time to time I stopped to scan the area hoping that it would be enough.

We were moving very slow, the absol seemed to remember about my warning to leave plants alive but going through them wasn't easy, especially when Agaar tried to avoid being touched by every possible branch, twig and even leaf. She was quite good at it, contorting in the craziest way I have ever seen, making me wonder why her spine hadn't broken yet and if she had a spine at all. Despite all her efforts, some parts of the environment still were able to reach her side, making her hiss angrily and throw some unspeakable words on the poor... whatever it was.

"Hide!" I threw just as in thickness I noticed something different. She hid, or rather disappeared. I didn't see her running away, but she was gone. As if she had melted into the air.

_How was it possible? That white colour is well visible in the dark._

I looked around but it was too dark to see anything, even the noise of her breathing disappeared and all I could hear was a nearing sound of waddling. A moment later I saw a medium sized blue bush walking awkwardly on two short legs, spreading its tentacle-like branches around checking the ground probably being blind in the night. I didn't move and hold my breath as this thing passed just next to me moving to where I was going earlier.

"I hate tangela," spoke Agaar's voice straight in my ear. "I never know if it is already dead, unless there are two of them. Then the sobs of one of them tell me that I can stop cutting its limbs off."

Normally, I would jump with a scream, scared of sudden sound just next to my ear, needed a moment to calm down then blame her for scaring me and end with asking what the fuck she meant with that tangela. But I was still keeping my breath, instead of the scream I exhaled muted breathing out of what air left in my lungs and instead of jumping, I felt that I started to lose orientation.

 _Breathe!_ I reminded myself.

"Where were you?" I asked silently.

"I was just next to you all the time," she answered. "You just said 'hide' so I hid."

"It was as if you disappeared completely or turned invisible! How did you do that?"

"It's my thing how. I wasn't asking you how you are taking with plants, so don't ask me how dark-type work in the night!" she growled with a sudden burst of anger.

"Sorry, I didn't know that is so important, I was just curious," I explained, backing away a little.

"You are from a different kind of wilderness, here we don't talk about types abilities. A mystery is everyone's weapon and asking for it is showing disrespect, but this one time I will leave it. Because you didn't know," she barked still visibly angry. I didn't want to continue this altercation so I just nodded in the way we supposed to go.

We quickly caught up to the tangela and, keeping a safe distance, started following her, or he, I wasn't sure if it had a gender. If it was a grass-type and seemed to be more plants and plants hadn't gender. It could be anything, but I, to makes thing easier, decided to call it 'he'. So, this male tangela was walking slowly making him easy to follow. Agaar mention few things about the pathetic grass-type, blind blue shit and stupid moving bushes. The longer we were following him the more adjectives she was able to fit with oblivious to everything tangela and when absol seemed to finish the subject she wondered what things she would do if the fate of tangela depended on her. I quickly established that she liked to cut things mainly with claws but from time to time she mentioned also her horn and tail. However, she didn't mention anything about teeth, I was comparing her mainly to umbreon since they were the same type and umbreons were mainly used its teeth in close fights. Even if listening to her treats, they were far from something I would enjoy, I was expecting her to tell at least once about things that she would be able to do with her teeth, but it didn't appear in her long list of possibilities. Nonetheless, the list ended and tangela, oblivious to everything that was spoken, got into another wall of thick bushes disappeared from our view.

We approached the same bushes slowly and looked that was behind. First what happened was that sudden light blinded me and Agaar even hissed angrily, it looked as if behind these bush was actually day. But the light wasn't shining from above but seemed to radiate from the huge oak in the centre of the clearing. The tree was already dry and dead, broken in the middle missing its crown. But from the multiple holes in the tree was shining a light so bright and focused that even places which suppose to be covered in shadow, were lit up. It was making the clearing look unrealistic as if I would enter a dream.

"Wow, it's so beautiful here," I breathed. Even the coldness of night somehow faded away, it was as if it was really a sunny day but only on this clearing before me. When I looked up through the tree's crowns I saw still dark sky and stars. This night was generally warmer than the last one but it was still nothing with a heat coming from the strange tree.

"Hay! Leafeon! Come on!" I snapped out and looked at absol who was silently hissing to me.

"What?" I asked also silently.

"Finally, you were watching at this clearing as if you saw there desirous female which spread her legs for you," she taunted forcing me with her paw to lower level so I couldn't look through the bushes any longer, and also was less visible for anyone who may be there.

"Was I drooling?" I asked sheepishly.

"Why you are asking?"

"No reason." Agaar seemed to size me up for a moment before she shook her head.

"You saw that shining thing?" she asked putting away my question.

"You mean tree? Yeah" I nodded. "It looked as if it was dead but was shining so intensively, what was that?"

"It is not a glowing tree stupid, it was something inside of it, and this is 'it', 'it' was what we were talking about and what we are going to take," she reminded but I fell in confusion.

"How we are supposed to take the tree with us? Maybe you saw some grass-types making bushes move as they want but I can't do it," I said. "I also can't convince dead glowing trees to walk with us."

"It's not a glowing tree!" she barked returning to her angry tone. "It is something inside, kind of stone in size of your head, maybe smaller. You going to take it and give it to me. Then you will be in your home in no-time."

"Really?"

"No, it's at least two weeks of walking to reach the place you said you are from but it can be longer if you won't move and take it already!"

Gritting my teeth, I turned back to the glade and carefully left our hiding spot when my eyes lied on a suspicious looking pile of leaves. I didn't spot it earlier as I was staring at the tree but this pile shouldn't be here, or at least shouldn't be that big as there were no such big trees around so it could be created naturally. It was also something similar in that hill of leaves. Maybe was it this giant flower which looked like a small tree, at the top of the pile. As I looked more attentively around I spotted more suspicious looking parts of the environment. Tangela burrowed in bushes, giant sunflowers which weren't actually just simple plants, cones growing on trees which kind shouldn't have cones. Agaar was right that grass-types were good at hiding as a part of the forest, someone who may not know every kind of plants around here or is different than type may miss all of it, I almost missed it.

Why was I expecting it to be easy? It couldn't be just a simple walk, grab a thing that I needed and go back to Agaar. Instead, I had to crawl between sleeping pokemon, who knows what they do if they wake up? I lowered to the ground and I felt blades of grass rubbing against my chest and crawled in the mystical tree's direction. It wasn't far, but every step I made, I made with putting into it all my focus and attention making it as quiet, carefully and slowly as I only could. Even then, my steps sounded like thunder in the absolute silence of the glade. Sleeping ones weren't breathing, or not by mouths so I couldn't hear them, I wished that I also could suddenly change the way I was breathing as it became even louder than my walk.

In the middle of my way I needed to stop, out of the corner of my eye I noticed a movement, short and quick but when I looked more carefully at what I thought had moved, I didn't see anything that changed but then it moved again. It seemed that something was moving under the grass and could be mistaken with the wind. There was no wind on this night, and wind would move grass all over the glade and trees around. The grass was emphasising, moving to the place where I exited the bushes and slowly changed direction as if searching for my track and following what it found. It was slow but I understood that my time here was shortened, I couldn't any longer put so much attention to my paws if I didn't want this thing to reach me. It wasn't walking yet but faster than before I reached the tree, my hunter also sped up as if hearing me better now.

Close to the tree, not everything was lit up so well as the light needed a distance to spread around, under the tree I found myself in shadow. Now I had to take, or naming things by name, to steal this glowing thing inside of the old dead oak but the closes hole was too high for me to reach. Using numerous curves, cracks and growths I climbed at the hole level and looked inside. In the bright light, I saw that the oak was empty inside but there was a ledge in the middle created from a much smaller and younger tree which was fouling around shining stone. It was actually three stones melted with each other but not enough to lose visible ends between them. All stone looked like an egg, symmetrically put together in white, blue and red colour. It was smaller than Agaar described it, small enough to be caught in the muzzle.

I reached for it with my paw touching it, trying to move it closer. The stone moved a little but at the same time I started to hear some noises behind me, noises similar to these which I could hear when trees fell, but these ones were more like yawning. I reached to it again now moving it closer and fastly grabbing the stone in my mouth, pulling it out of the tree.

I did it too fast and lost balance on the tree's side, luckily it wasn't high from the ground. Just as I hit the ground with my back, the stone stopped glowing and the dark night overwhelmed this part of the forest. Someone roared loudly just right next to me with anger, a little further something cried with surprise and suddenly all peace disappeared when more and more voices started to wildly howl.

"Good job! Now run!" I heard Agaar screaming in my ear, pushing me to stand up on all four and to move. I again couldn't see her but I listened and followed her sound. I could see shapes of other pokemon in the dark but they were completely blind without the light, something heavy hit the ground on my left but too far to harm me, then again something slammed the bushes behind me tearing them and almost pulling them from the ground.

I depended only on my hearing now, turning and running where I heard the sound of four clawed paws and where I saw ghost-like white blur which I guessed was my absol.

Screams and noises of limbs slamming into random things lowered and soon there was the only noise of my and Agaar steps. My breath became heavy as I still cared the stone in my mouth and it was preventing me from breathing with a full mouth. Suddenly Agaar stopped and turned to me, I almost ran into her but managed to stop inches before her head.

"Show it!" she ordered as she made a step back from me. I spew the stone on the ground and she examined it closely.

"It doesn't glow," she said as if with pretension to me for it.

"Yeah," I nodded as she kept looking at me waiting for who knew what.

"Turn it on then," she suggested pushing the stone to me.

"But how?"

"You turned it off so now turn it on," she said sternly.

"But I don't know how, it turned off by itself," I defended myself.

"There won't be a glowing stone, there won't be my help," she argued, I didn't know what to do, I couldn't make it suddenly glow. It was the first time I saw anything like this and she required me to know how to use it.

"Why you need it to glow? I can't control this stone, earlier I didn't even know that stones can glow, even you weren't sure what it is!" I almost screamed in despair.

"It was a trade, I had to bring the glowing stone to him," she said.

"Who is he?" I asked.

"One of the fire-types so obsessed with defeating grass types."

"Than go to him during the day! He won't see if it is glowing and if he would have any doubts, just threaten him that you will slice him or other shit! He probably doesn't even know how it should look like!"

"Why are you sure about it?"

"Because to see it he would need to be there on that clearing and then he could have taken it by himself instead of making you do it," I said, adding in thought 'and you made me do it'.

"That's... actually not a bad idea," Agaar trembled but agreed, so I could take a breath of relief.

"So what now?" I asked, hoping that there won't be anything to do, since I felt tired of lurking in the night, of running, of stress, even just by standing in place.

"Take the stone and go to the cave, it's the fourth hour of the morning, the time of assassin and hunts, at this hour every mind is much weaker than usual and..."

"Yep, whatever, I heard it already from Serge more than once, he just didn't say that it was at that fourth hor and..."

"Hour," she corrected, at second thought, I wasn't sure if anyone from the pack even heard about something like hors, who needed it anyway?

"...from the experience of a grass-type, I can tell you that doesn't work, maybe now I am a bit tired from all this running, but usually I am quite fine. I don't feel that my mind it weaker or anything" I continued as if I couldn't even hear her. "Where is the cave?"

"Right behind you," she said. I turned not really believing her but the cave really was there. Were we really running all this way back?

I took the stone and walked to the cave but Agaar still had something to say.

"Watch out leafeon, you are too far out of your kind's normal, being able to follow a dark-type in the night is not a kind of luck or a good eye. I am watching you," she said in a low tone and went into the far forest.

I couldn't understand what she meant, out of the standard of my kind? Was I fat? Maybe I wasn't the fittest eeveelution in the pack but fat? Absolutely not! I could compete with espeons! I mean, fit espeons, obviously.

I curled on the stone ground and tried to sleep but irritating thoughts that maybe I should go run some more, that if one pokemon can see me 'out of standard' than maybe others can see too, they kept me awake until today's efforts overcame my thoughts.

I woke up still tired, I hated when that happened, why I was waking up when I still wanted to sleep? Why did my brain decide to break the dream and now demanding it back? It didn't make any sense!

Although I was tired, I couldn't fall asleep again, so I lifted my eyelids. It was still night but it was brighter than before. I lifted myself up and walked to the exit, there was some weak yellow glow around, guess it was before sunrise. It wasn't.

The sky was still filled with stars and the moon shone brightly. It was so silent around, there was no memory of how many things happened on the same night. Just darkness and silence, and according to Agaar I should be afraid of it. Why? Was there something wrong with that? Was it what she called 'out of standard'? And maybe it was, other grass-types even slept with light so maybe they were really afraid of the dark? Maybe I just got used to it, having these and not other friends in my younger years. I was spending the same amount of time during the day and in the night so maybe I didn't mind about the time of day. But still, I couldn't understand why others could be afraid of night, why they should be afraid of something that was happening so regularly and was unable to avoid.

'Out of standard', it could be why I didn't understand them. Funny, I was looking for grass-type to learn something that I could use, yet when I found them by accident I allied with some absol against them and stole... something, I wasn't even sure what it was.

The weak yellow glow disappeared, replaced by white one, one which I was much more familiar with. It was my white side of leaves which sometimes decided to give some light around, another thing I should finally find an answer to but there was no one to question about it. The glow was actually false, it couldn't light up the cave or anything, all that it could do was reflect other light, now the moonlight.

I put my tail and ears flat with the white sides down and the reflected light disappeared. Maybe if I befriend Agaar a bit more than she may give me some answers, she seemed to be quite knowledgeable, which was also untypical. How could she know what was normal and what wasn't for leafeon? She didn't seem old but vast knowledge was expected, rather, from those whose life was already done and on who the first grey fur appeared. Actually, her colourisation sometimes seemed grey but I wouldn't give her many more years than I had, calculating it at a different time of our species limit of time. So maybe there was a thing. If I had those seven winters behind me, she could have, for example, thirty but being mature as I was, it would mean she would change by four years for every one year I did. That was very unfair. But from the second hand, she was wasting a lot of her time on some deals, fights and generally, she didn't look very much like she was enjoying her time around.

Thoughts of non-existence always made my heart feel heavy, yet I was rather trying to understand them than reacting with fear.

There were few theories about what was happening after we used all of our time but I never liked when someone was telling me what will happen not showing anything particular so I quickly create my own theories and guesses. Starting from very basic of what could be happening I got stuck on my first question, was it really something to thought about? Maybe our imagination just couldn't accept that there was absolutely nothing, just the end of being, without a singing chorus, ancestors, prices or punishments. Just nothing, and I wouldn't even know that because there won't be self-consciousness or something that could be left from it.

Yeah, it was hard to imagine, if I wanted to see nothing, I saw darkness, but darkness could be lit up and become something so it couldn't symbolise complete end. Yet I still tried to imagine nothingness, it was like forcing through the kind of blockade in my mind. This fight was always ending in one way, I established that I couldn't imagine something that I couldn't see. But could absolute nothingness even exist by itself or was its existence limited to the word 'nothingness'? A place, a thing or maybe a creature, whatever it was, a symbol of non-existence should not exist by what it was symbolising just like what the thing it was symbolising.

Maybe just imaginative tales of others' theories was just easier? It was an escape from the weight of self-fragility, self-uncoupledness and self-inconsistency.

The sun started to rise from the horizon, the glow of dawn was intensifying and the red sun appeared above the highest trees' tops, increasing temperature. With the dawn, Agaar arrived in her typical grumpy expression put between stroked white fur which seemed to lay on her without any condition or composition, only the horn and tail was marking there where was front and back of the absol. However, she somehow managed to look proud and majestic like that. Not incredibly majestic but still enough to not be mistaken with the heap of snow. I didn't take notice earlier but she looked as if she had never even heard that long fur should be, from time to time, not only cleaned but also well-groomed. Otherwise, it would stand into many different ways and look just like Agaar's fur looked right now. Mine was short so I didn't need to work around it, since it wouldn't be really visible, but she should for sure. Nonetheless, it won't be me who would have to say this to her.

"Now, you not, sleep yes." Was all that she said sounding already half asleep, she passed me and went into the cave. Then it struck me: if she was nocturnal and I prefer a day than how we supposed to travel together? I already could guess that she would force me to stay awake during the night to walk but I couldn't miss a day, maybe one or two I could but for more, I would die from hunger or my leaves would become all broken. So far it looked that it will be a very exhausting trip.

Hoping that her rest wouldn't be long, I stayed in the sun for some photosynthesis, making myself feel a bit stronger.

At late noon as I was lying in the grass, my companion walked out of the cave, but she wasn't looking rested, more like a lunatic which was just a step from becoming an astral existence or from falling flat on its head and stuffing its mouth with green, just like Agaar did it right now.

"I also don't like when I wake up too early," I shot as Agaar was spewing fallen leaves and some of the dirt. I wasn't sure if it was a rule but from my observation on Segre, I could say that nocturnal dark-types often had lack of sleep. My guess was that it was hard to sleep while it was bright outside and the days never were as silent as the nights.

"I never get used to it," Agaar said under her breath, confusing me a little if she meant me, making comment or actual waking up, maybe both.

I hadn't many chances to have a lazy morning, it was one of those occasions. Not being waking up by anyone, hadn't anything to do, just lying on the unbelievable comfortable grass, napping. Every time at mornings a place where I was lying was becoming suddenly the most comfortable place I knew, even if it was the same place where I couldn't fall asleep after sundown.

And everything would be fine, but there was still one fact, a thought, it wasn't home, and I had a lot to do. Because of it I wasn't resting but staring at Agaar, waiting until she would be able to do whatever she still had to do in this area and finally move out. Before that happened I felt that I was only wasting my time, thinking where we could already be if we wouldn't procrastinating our departure.

Agaar, however, absolutely wasn't in any hurry, she was moving lazily, cleaning her claws and sharpening her horn, what I assumed were usual things that absols did after they woke up. After she hadn't anything more of what was dirty to clean out or dull to be sharpened, she started stretching. Even if I couldn't complain about it, I wished it would be Cera or Navia, it would be much more pleasing to watch.

Denying her back legs in the ground the lowered her hips to the ground and pushed with front legs up, tilting her head back and staying like that for a moment. Agaar slowly returned to the normal position but didn't stop, now lowering her head and chest to the ground and... oh, wow.

* * *

"Is it far?" I asked as the absol was leading to the meeting point, where we had to give the no-longer-glowing stone carried on my tail to somebody who Agaar supposedly knew.

"No, it's not. But during this meeting, don't talk, generally, act like some stupid plant, don't even show that you understand what others are talking," said Agaar, stopping in place and standing for a moment on her hind legs to look over the undergrowth. "Arcanines, magmar and braixen, well until braixen isn't very skilful in psychic it shouldn't be any problems."

"Okay, but why?"

"First, on this meeting, you are my slave, following my orders and imitating fear. It's just for show and to avoid stupid questions. Remember that fire-types burn pure hatred to your type and don't know that you are able, for example, to talk or different thing typical for living creatures and there is no reason to let them find out that they are wrong. We just need to use their stupidity and give them the grass type of their imagination," explained Agaar and smirked. "Whenever I go the number of idiots doesn't change, how it possible?"

"There is not really that many idiots, they are just placed like that you always must to find one." It was a rather rhetorical question, but I answered it anyway. I found it funny how Agaar thought, since her first expression was like: 'Are you able to talk?' and now she laughed from pokemon who thought just like she thought two days before. Was it making Agaar one of those perfectly placed idiots? I smiled to myself but the absol didn't notice anything.

It appeared that behind the undergrowth was starting part of the burned-to-the-ground forest, four other pokemon were already waiting for us there. Two of them were huge canines, standing a distance behind the main group of two-legged pokemon. Reminded of what my role was, I tried to look poor, just like someone who would have been threatened and in fear of itself life, I flattered my ears and started to walk somehow bent-over. I also considered pulling my tail between legs, but it would make it hard to walk, it wasn't some small straight tail but a large solar platform. It also would use some attention since the number of small damages at my leaf's edges lately grew in number, making it look jagged. But on another hand, wasn't it making me look more virile?

While I was pinning my eyes onto the ground avoiding any contact possible, we approached the group and I could guess that they were glaring at me.

"You, I know," I heard the magmar speaking, he had a sore throat, that for sure was illness and was already quite well-developed judging from his voice. There was no chance that it would heal without help. "But what is 'this' and why it that here?"

"I tamed him," Agaar answered sharply, but not in an offence tone. "I have this."

"Show it," a different voice said, this one voice sounded too young to be sure if it was female or male, I ascribed it to braixen. I wondered what age he or she could be. I could only guess how long this species used to live, I only hoped that my species isn't one of these with the shortest life.

"You are four and I am only one, you need to do your part first. Cabbage doesn't matter, he wouldn't be able to do anything anyway," said Agaar.

 _Cabbage? Oh, Agaar someday I will pay you back for that_. I didn't like, I hate when someone calls me a plant. It's the easiest way to piss me off and and... I really would like to hit something hard to damp down this anger.

"First I need to check if it's a real one, hope you don't expect that we would trust the word of a dark-type and we just check it now," said braixen. Agaar stayed silent for a moment.

"Give it to them," she finally said and I, in pretended, hurry jogged to the braixen and pushed the stone into his extended paws, then I quickly returned and stood behind Agaar. I stood in a way so she was covering me from the eyes of fire-types and I could watch over the absol's shoulder. The magmar was ceaselessly rubbing his throat while the braixen was looking at the stone as if he was trying to make a hole in it just by staring at it.

"It is it," braixen confirmed after a while. "How were you able to get it?"

"Don't ask stupid questions son," chastened him magmar. "You are forbidden absol. Now go away."

The meeting was over, we could go back to the forest.

"What was that about?" I asked.

"Nothing, I pissed off someone too powerful and had to do a suicidal mission, you were helpful. Good for both of us that this one time I listened to the brain, instead of the stomach."


	8. Ch8 'Crossroads'

Chapter 8 "Crossroads"

* * *

"We're going far, we're going far, and there is no one who may stop us now. And when you think this night going to end, let sing with me once agaaaain..."

"AH! Please stop!" angry Agaar once again disturbed my vocal singing and for the moment I was silently following her through the forest at morning when the dew had already appeared, making me feel fresh and ready for everything. It was also making the artist part of my soul feel the rhythm when it wasn't done yet. But I decided to try at least something slower so that grumpy pokemon may like it.

"His eyes were not blind still he could not see a danger deep inside of me. You could not stop, you couldn't feel..."

"I promised to bring your leafy ass to your home but if you won't stop singing I will bring it dead!" she screamed at me and I would even try one more like 'See the lighting in your eyes, see them running for their lives' but decided against it.

"Okay, I will be silent, 'I will slice and kill everyone'" I answered, with faked gentleness.

"You are really asking for something horrible," she barked back. Not seeing any sense in continuing it, I stayed silent and focused just on walking. Anyway, these songs sounded better when they were sung after drinking some of this funny tasting juice which a brother of a cousin of a grandfather of a nephew of stepdaughter of Serge's friend was making from time to time to add some charm to umbreon's night duties, on which Serge took me with him few times. Saying simply, it was much easier to sing being wack.

"Also, we just started our journey, and you sing as if we were walking for months." the annoyed absol returned to the conversation closed by herself.

"It is a rare occasion," I said admiring how forests could look different in different parts of the world. It was the same trees bushes ground and dirt, leaves had known to me shade of green, grass known length yet it wasn't the same plant I saw before. It was amazing how the environment could achieve different forms still being built by the same elements.

"You need to really like your home if you are trying so much to go there," she stated, and my eyes went from one perfectly shaped and green leaf to her, she wasn't looking at me but forward.

"Of course! I love my pack; it's the best place to be! Maybe Sogot sometimes gets on my nerves, but it wasn't happening very often," I exclaimed.

"Sogot?" Absol asked.

"The current leader of the pack, but if you would ever meet him you would need to call him Sogot the Bushyflame.

After hearing his full name, Agaar snorted with laughter.

"Hah! How can someone with a name like that be a leader? Or is it a title? Haha, you eeveelutions really don't like to take things seriously," Agaar laughed, making me frown.

"He got this title by the way he fights," I explained. "Before him, it was Azor the Duskeye, my grandfather."

"Was he blind to achieve a title like that?" asked the dark-type, seemingly looking for another thing to laugh about, yet it didn't deter me from answering. I was proud of my origins and ancestor, and liked to say a word or two about it.

"No, he was an umbreon and when he got really angry his left eye was overwhelmed by dark flame. I heard tales that there were cases when even his bravest opponents fell to the ground, curled up and cried seeing that," I said, remembering the tale which I heard long ago from my own parents.

"It's too unbelievable to be true but it's reminding me of a dark move, so it isn't impossible," said Agaar, losing her girding tone and her thought drifted somewhere far away, causing silence.

"And what about you leafeon? Do you have any title?" she questioned, breaking the silence.

"Me? No, titles are only for important ones. I am just Zar," I said, embarrassed.

"Being the grandchild of the leader doesn't make you an important one, Zar?" she asked, but quickly added."Wait, if he was your grandfather and since in two generations the leader changed only once, then at what age can you... umm reproduce?"

"In theory, at four, in practice, pairing starts at six. He died long ago but the leader changed only once, not because we are eh, making things early, but because Sogot lives incredibly long. He was a domestic pokemon earlier." I explained sheepishly.

"Medicine and proper feeding can really make life longer," Agaar said, but more to herself than to me.

"Medicine?" I repeated a new heard word.

"Pils, vaccinations, syrups, toiletries, artificial made or natural, it helps to cure illnesses, prove better development or just give some pleasure. I still miss headache pills."

"Pils? Toiletries? Vaccinations? What are you talking about?" Her explanation only confused me even more. Agaar smiled awkwardly and chuckled.

"Doesn't matter." Was all I heard before another part of walking in silence. Headache tablets? Maybe was it kind of nuts? Some hard ones would cause a headache to anyone who may try to eat them? But why she was missing them then? Were they really so good that a headache was worth trying them?

"What about your home?" I asked, I wasn't expecting her to miss it, actually she didn't look like someone who could be lost.

"I left it behind," she answered.

"Is it typical of your kind or did you have some dream to fulfil?"

"I didn't belong to this home so I left it, I thought differently and was obsessed with the world behind the walls of everyday life."

"So, were you a domestic pokemon?" I asked but didn't think that she could be domestic; she seemed to be wilder than me so she couldn't be.

"I was never caught," she said and I caught raising irritation, so I thought to stay silent for now. However, she didn't answer the question. I didn't ask further and focused on just walking.

When I lifted my eyes up again, I noticed that the environment hadn't changed much and the horizon was still showing the same view. As time was passing and as the afternoon started to change to evening, the absol was showing more and more energy. She sped up, her eye was more focused and instead of, expected by me, the ennui of a long road she was more and more energised. I was an opposition, I thought that the problem of day and night, despite earlier confidence, wasn't solved. It was still a lot of time before nightfall and we supposed to walk during the night, too, but I already felt that I wouldn't be able to.

* * *

I was a pokemon of action, I couldn't just walk silently and monotonously with a monotone environment and monotone thoughts.

_Step, step, step._

Paw after paw, a silent patter of my small claws in a place where the ground was harder and shuffle where it was more grassy. Answering me was similar one coming from under Agaar's legs but in a different rhythm, her long claws were grasping the ground and larger paws were stamping the ground leaving a visible mark on the ground, completely different to my narrow and almost invisible mark. Also when Agaar was going through the grass, she was leaving a path of flattened plants, while after me they were standing up as if no one ever walked there.

_Step, step, step. Front-right, back-left, front-left, back-right._

Certainly, nature was at my side. Also, I noticed that I outran her at listening, which wasn't much surprise. At first look, I wasn't even sure if she has ears.

_Step, step, step._

Was she wondering something or like me, was she counting steps? I never could grasp how others could just be next to someone and keep silence. Were they just like me wondering how to start a conversation and then why they kept silent or were they just busy with something? Being in a company of yourself wasn't bad but when there was someone next to you then he shouldn't be ignored. That's how I felt, ignored.

_Step, step, step._

Ignored by one who kept dragging this ignorance, behind the one who spread this ignorance, making this ignorance to exist longer but I didn't have another option. I couldn't walk a different path avoiding the feeling of ignorance, since if I could, I would try to meet with Agaar somewhere on this road, putting this ignorance aside, but I couldn't. I didn't know where we were going, or did I know? To my pack, the destination was clear, but where were we going now, or the question should be what were we planning to go through to meet my pack?

_Step, step, step_

"So where are we going?" I didn't manage to stay silent any longer.

"I thought that you knew where you want to go."

"Yeah, but until we reach my home, we would need to go through something right?"

"We will go through 'The Path of the Dying', it's a shortcut," she answered carelessly.

"That doesn't sound encouraging," I marked, not too happy, also a bit regretting that I asked.

"It's also called 'Hangman's Forest' or 'Whisper-fog Ground', it a pretty but dark forest around the single mountain, it's quite dense, and there is also a lake." It wasn't convincing me.

"If it is so great a place then why it named like that?" I asked.

"It's because of the legend, there was a humans village there, long ago, one day everyone disappeared. You probably can guess how the wild pokemon reacted. They started exploring what left, and it's when the legend starts because no one knows what these pokemon found since they disappeared too. 'Because some places shouldn't be found' that's what you hear if you would ask someone who may know something about this place. Supposedly, so many died there that Death stayed there forever and kept mimicking the voices of those who he met."

"Wouldn't it be better, then, to avoid this place?" I asked, already not wanting to go there.

"Are you kidding? Going around would take days and I don't believe in the legend. I am a dark-type; I am supposed to be the one who scares others, not the one who shake in fear. It's probably nothing more than a few ghost-types who just played with someone's dreams."

Legends always have a truth in them, that's why they existed and that is how they were started. From the spark of truth and the more believed, the bigger the flame was. However, the brighter the flame got the harder it was to see what was true in it. What if, behind this on legend, was standing something much more horrible than pokemon, though. My pack also had a legend, about a grey-eyed eeveelution, the certain type changed depending who was talking about it. This legend had one less popular part, this mighty eeveelution had a descendant, and he or she was in our pack. Some says that Azor, our earlier leader was this descendant, since according to legend, the one who had the blood of grey-eyed showed untypical abilities.

And I wouldn't really care about it, if not for the fact that newly born eevees were always checked by some espeon to find if they had anything 'different'. Thought that, if not Cera, I wouldn't know about it too.

"What about the second name? Whisper-fog was it?" I asked.

"Did I mention that there is a lake in that forest? Yeah, so naturally there is also fog. Some pokemon keep saying that it is possible to lose your mind in this fog and that you can hear voices of those who have died. It's bullshit, obviously, caused rather by this that someone rather wanted to hear something than they really heard. It's just pumped sensation, nothing real," she said and looked at me. "Uh, you really look scared. If it calms you down, I can say that I was there before and nothing special happened." I wouldn't say that I had a peaceful state of mind right now, but I wasn't shivering, or was I?

"Really?"

"Yes, and I can say that none of any of this is true, I didn't find the abandoned humans' settlement, whispering fog or hanging bodies. It is just a forest of a specific climate, maybe that's why others say fake stories about it." Maybe I was really overthinking it? Maybe it was really nothing to worry about.

As I felt calmer, a thought made a mess in my mind again. What if Agaar didn't find anything because if she would find, she would be too scared to go back to the forest? And now she would drag me with her there. Why should I even trust her or anyone here in the wilderness? She wasn't my species and all I knew was a name, Agaar, which wasn't even a real one.

Another more ridiculous thought was that this absol saw what she should to guide someone in this forest but it was too unreal to have even a chance to be true. Maybe my mind liked to be scared if it was giving me such thoughts?

"Well, Agaar, you learned few things about me," I started closing an of bit distance to walk side by side and not talk to her back.

"Yes, I did," she answered, a bit bored.

"Don't you want to say a bit more about yourself?" I asked, but tried to not sound like I was pushing her. It was a typical mistake in relations with dark-types.

"No," she answered freely on the not pledging question. Typical dark-type, 'I don't need to do something so I am not going to do it'. How could I forget how to act with dark-types? Didn't I spend enough time with umbreon to know how to ask to get a real answer?

I made my leaves to produce small dizzying mist around us, considering that absols hadn't better smell or eyes than umbreon she shouldn't notice anything and if she did then I would need to improvise with some fast explanation.

"Name at least?" I continued, now with a tone suggesting that I didn't want to hear 'No'. She didn't answer immediately, as if she had to chew the words in her mouth before throwing them out.

"I told you mine, be fair," I tried to help her with her decision, but I already could see that the small help from my leaves was making an effect. Funny how practised and how effective this move was. I wondered if I would increase it, I would put pokemon around me to sleep as I was sometimes doing or would it be possible to get high and have kind of control over the other pokemon. I decided to try it later, maybe on someone who would be resistive to it so I would make any unwanted harm.

"Before I tell you there is one condition: don't use it when there is someone around."

"Why? What is the sense of having a name which you can't use?"

"My, and apparently your species too, are not very common, because of it, it is hard to recognise us by most of the other pokemon so using different names not only frees me from every problem which you could have with someone, but also make it looks like there are much more absols around, not only one which can be simply killed and there won't be anyone who may give consequences for doing it," she explained telling it a bit unclearly, probably the daze I gave her affected her speech too.

"Okay, it's acceptable," I agreed. Maybe should I also use different names? But no one knew or shouldn't know me outside of the pack so it should be fine going as 'Zar'. Also, I hadn't immunity to psychic and others frills of this kind, so someone could notice that I am trying to lie.

"Sonya."

"What?" I asked tore away from my thoughts.

"The name, Sonya, that's my name," she repeated.

"Oh, okay, that's a nice name, Sonya, sounds better than Agaar, that's for sure," I said. At least I didn't need to keep breaking my tongue trying to say her name any longer. "Do you think that I should use another name too?"

"It won't work," she negated my idea almost instantly. "I, just like others, won't recognise one leafeon from another but your specific colourisation makes it much easier. I doubt that there is a second leafeon with white leaves."

"Soon I will become red and brown, so it won't be so visible," I informed, stumbling over some rocks hidden in the grass. I hissed at the sudden pain in my fingers but kept walking without hobbling.

"Really you change colour for the fall? And what about the winter and spring?" she asked, weirdly excited.

"At spring I am green again, maybe a bit brighter green than I have now but in winter... well it's hard to name," I answered stopping exhaling my mist a bit afraid of her changes of mood.

"What you mean by hard to name?" she pushed me.

"I don't know how to name this colour, grey or silver but at the same time any of it. Though it's quite good camouflage in the heaps of snow," I remembered.

The wall of trees that was surprising ended, leaving only the empty flat field of short grass ahead. I automatically stopped, I had nothing against clearings, but the size of this one was astonishing. The grass looked like the sheet of a lake moving in the blows of the wind, spreading far to the horizon where the forest was continuing and where the single U-shaped mountain made of black rock was, like a claw scratching the sky.

"That is the Foreground, quite impressive even for non-grass-types," Sonya said seeing my stare. "The mountain and the forest around it, it's the forest we were talking about."

Suddenly the forest and mountain seemed, to me, no longer beautiful. Two mountains' peaks looked sharp, and their black colour seemed to mask every detail of the mountainside.

Sonya continued the walk into the clearing while I still was looking afar but I joined her shortly after.

The ground here was a bit moist, flowers were rare and only small blooms were pending from the ocean of grass, the much more interesting view was above us. Standing in the open field, the sky seemed more beautiful than any time earlier, perfectly blue with clouds like scratches or leaves floating on the sheet of a blue pond. It was a different sky than what I saw above my home every day, when I was walking out of my den or during my naps at my small field where I supposed to work, different than the sky above which I met Agaar..., Sonya. Different, and yet the same blue sky.

_Another sky to admire, another sky to remember and another sky to leave behind._

"See those two to your right?" asked Sonia. I rapidly looked right afraid that I didn't hear anyone coming but I didn't see anyone there. "In the sky, those black dots," she added pointing the direction with a nose. I followed her guide and saw what she was talking about but it wasn't just a black dot. Both of them were avian creature flapping its two wings covered by blue feathers.

"It's rather kind of blue than black," I said, looking at pokemon.

"How you see colour from that distance?" asked Sonia, lowering her tone, being suspicious about my vision.

"I am just not blind," I shot back and she smirked silently repeating 'blind' and mumbling one more word but I didn't catch what it was.

"Anyway, if they are blue, it's probably a pair of swellows. They are flying here and will tell similar stuff I told you about this forest and order to avoid it," Sonia said. "They are quite an irritating and aggressive pair."

"Will they attack us?" I asked worried about a confrontation with the unknown enemy. Flying pokemon weren't a complete mystery to me but I had never met any before.

"I wish for it; I haven't eaten anything since this morning," Sonia said dreamily. "No, I doubt that they will even get close enough to be reached. Don't worry, if they are able to fly, they need to be light, and when they are light, then their body are going to be very easy to break.

"They don't stand a chance fighting us, quadruped born pure blooded, better build. But I guess that's me talking to you about adaptation would be the waste of time, in the end, you are an eeveelution here."

"Back in my home, trees were mostly short and easy to climb up. Even if there were days when some flying pokemon were living there, they needed to be all hunted down. The pack is big and no one would like to be hungry, because of it everything that is out of communication class goes for food," I said though she should already know it. Maybe absols didn't like to be in such big groups but she was a hunter by herself. But from another paw, she may not know the situation in the pack, she never was there. I doubt that any non-eeveelution was there.

"Communication class? And that means...?" asked Sonia, waiting for me to end her sentence.

"Heh, generally it's not called like that, I just didn't know how to say it in one word," I answered. "I mean pokemon 'not for eating' like... like.. absol, like absol for example," I think so, who may know what umbreons are hunting in their depressed and bloodthirst state or overcharged crazy jolteons. "Those with whom we can normally speak because of similarities of size, build and strength and those which eating would be just not right."

"You mean 'intelligent' ones?" Sonia helped with a suggestion. "So let's take for example: ratata..."

"It's wrong example," I cut her.

"Why? It's in size of the eevee...

"Eevees don't hunt, they are too clumsy and too small to deal with the world," I explained.

"Okay but it is intelligent pokemon," she insisted on her example.

"We don't consider it as intelligent," I answered stepping in some small puddle. With a grumble, I shook my paw and continued walking.

"It can talk."

"Sonya, you are talking as if you would never hunt while even I have few preys on my account, nothing to be proud of but still something," I said, I wasn't in a mood for explaining such simple things also I couldn't find myself in a role of a teacher.

"I am just trying to learn how you are explaining it to yourself, I only tell apart competition as other absols, these from whom I can gain something, these I owe something and the rest is just a lump of meat."

"Okay, then we don't think that ability to talk makes you intelligent, but self-awareness and those who we consider have lower self-awareness end as food," I said trying to close the theme.

"That's a really comfortable and very easy way to eliminate species you may not like. Just by a sudden change of your consideration," the absol smirked.

"And what can I say? I told you how it looks in general but no one is checking what hungry eeveelution found itself to eat. We are not some specialised fighters to hunt powerful pokemon, just those which are easy to find and easy to catch. Just to move forward without making anything to regret." I exhaled with slight frustration. Hunting wasn't my thing, I didn't know much about it, so I didn't want to explain it acting like an expert. My knowledge was limited to my three first hunts, which rather were controlled lessons instead of real hunts, and few times I went on a hunt with Serge but he was hunting and I was only assisting as a company. Going after something that is escaping and catching it was always great fun from the youngest age and I found it funny even today but I was lazy, guess everyone is a bit lazy. But everyone in the pack had a great motivator in the form of hunger, my motivation was strong enough to make me move enough to walk in the sun, eventually for water.

Maybe it was the reason why I fell so far behind after evolution? I hadn't the motivation to work on myself. While everyone was using their advantages to overcome their disadvantages, they were also becoming better. I didn't need to do it.

Perfect adaptation? For living in a large group, without the worry of eventual danger, yes. In general, no. Falling in self-pride was wrong and could lead me to become a person I didn't like to be. Considering that I like me as current me. Current meant, right now, walking with a slowly opening up absol trying my hardest to be nice and with a goal before eyes. However, I didn't like my morning me.

I always had problems waking up in the morning, delaying standing up over and over again until midday when the ground under me lost its comfort and became just ground, hard and flat ground. Standing up lately caused that, I completely didn't feel rested and thought only about sleeping for the rest of the day. But when the night finally came, I was energized as a jolteon. Having fun till the late night, almost morning, with a bunch of umbreons, I felt great. I didn't have such great relations with any other type other than dark-type. I never wanted to consider types as different groups, but with them, I felt some connection. Maybe I really missed my evolution?

Destiny, sometimes I wondered if it really existed. An invisible power that makes us move in specific directions. Every time I think about it, I come to the conclusion that I and only I control the way I am doing, what I think and where I go. However, sometimes it was a bit weird how complication of events turned out. For example, a complication of me who got lost in the rain, fall into the river and almost get killed by an absol. Now it sounded like begging to some tale, very typical and easy to predict tale. Because isn't it a very repetitive scheme when the main character suddenly finds themselves in unknown surroundings and tries to deal with it?

Maybe repetitive, but I still liked stories like that. Through it always depended on who was telling the story, since even the best plot told in a boring way was boring. I think that every cub that lives in place of the pack has the willingness to learn about things we don't see, what is behind the horizon, to check if everywhere the sky looks the same. However, with age, this willingness disappeared. It was something that I wished I could feel again.

Thinking deeply, I picked a longer green twig from the field of grass just to have something to gnaw on. The gnawed part of the twig I was spewing out, maybe I change type with evolution, but not the species. I was still a carnivore, just with an addition in the form of leaves able to catch solar energy, so a green stick wasn't edible for me.

However, the twig caused me to lose what I was thinking about. Just a short distraction and I was able to completely forget the thought. I sighed heavily, getting a quick glance from Sonya, and looked once again in the sky.

The two pokemon were still flying toward us, but were still far away. However, were much harder to notice because of the blurry mist. The fog started to rise. I barely noticed it, but the closer to the dark forest we were, the shorter my vision was. The ground was getting wetter to the point where Sonya's large paws were loudly splashing the water, pressing it out of the grass. I was a bit afraid to mention it aloud, that the width of her species' paws was astonishing.

I was so bad. I thought. I comment her as if I haven't had any oversized part of my own. She hadn't even visible ears; mine must have looked colossal to her.

The coldness increased and the wet ground made me lose temperature even faster. I folded tail and other my half-leaves to my back to help myself save warmth. I heard something cracking under my paws.

I looked down, the thing I broke was ice, single long and narrow strip of ice.

Wasn't it a bit too warm for ice? Trees didn't even lose their leaves, or mine didn't even start to change their colour, but here, in the middle of a sunny but swampy and foggy field was a piece of ice. Yeah, it cooled, but not to the point of freezing. I looked up and saw that Sonya also was glancing at the frozen grass with a frown on her face.

"Prick up your ears," she said. "The ice is almost completely melted, so it's been here a while, or it was just an ice-type who caught a cold and accidentally sneezed on the ground or someone finally claimed this territory. Terrible choice, finding food here is hard and it's rare that someone would come here."

I didn't agree with her; the scent of the owner of the ice should be here even long after it melted, yet I didn't feel anything. But I didn't say anything, she had been here before, so maybe she knew better. We kept walking, but it wasn't carelessness walking as before. The fog tensed, lowering temperature, even more, closing us in the whiteness. I focused on keeping a short distance with the absol, Sonya looked like just another white cloud of fog.

On the ground were spreading, like a lazily lying root, ridges of mist. Fulfilling every cavity and depression on the ground making them look like puddles of milk. The fog was overwhelming us, and every move we made was disturbing its calm.

I didn't know when we entered the forest. The first tree appeared from nothing, emerging from the fog just in front of us. Shortly after appearing, it wasn't the edge of the forest, we just missed when we entered the forest.

Barely visible overgrowth was like shadow or blur. The forest was thick and the path very narrow, Sonya walking first needed a few times to clean the way with claws and horn. The plants were very resistant, I would say, unnaturally resistant to the sharp tools of my absol. Thicker branches weren't even possible to cut. Sonya's horn was overwhelmed in a black flame of dark energy, sparks were flying but the one branch that was going across our way stayed unaffected as if joking from our efforts. That what at the beginning seemed to be great fun for absol, changed into frustration, unimaginable anger and the long sequence of curses with breaks of fury horn and claws attacks.

Anger, however, seemed to make Sonya's covered in darkness blades stronger. I knew that emotions, especially these wrong ones, had strong effects on the actions of dark types, but I never had a chance to see it alive. Guess that Serge had too much experience to lose his control near me.

It wasn't possible to live in the forest like this, in a typical forest you don't have any problems with walking around. Maybe sometimes you need to go around something or go through some bushes but there are no situations when you can't move at all because the thickness of the overgrowth makes it impassable. Still, I hoped that we were just unlucky; there was only a small part of the forest which looked like that, and we just walked into that part.

On another paw, Sonya's opinion about this forest changed from 'specific climate' to the fucking stinky snorlax's shit in the middle of place described by another unknown to me terms. She was a bit boring with her character, I mean, there was a lot of ways to express what she had in mind. Yet, she has always been using the same repetitive way.

These plants seemed to be dead; they weren't leafed, had deep dark colour and looked dry. Only looked since they weren't fragile at all.

And they weren't 'talking'.

Just silence, I didn't learn what these plants are, what they do or what they need, just silence, wordless than a gnawed stick.

*Crack*

I snapped out and noticed the funny scene before me. Sonya, who was all the time trying to cut the branch, finally managed to thrust her horn into the wood but didn't cut it, instead blade stuck in the branch being there despite every effort the absol put in attempts to pull it out. At least she was quiet now, busy with heavy breathing and noises of moaning.

It took a while of scuffling with the branch before Sonya's strength went away and she stood in place, still trapped but much calmer now. She started to try to pull the blade out not by force but by a combination of short jerks. When this method failed too, she moved her attention to me and I found myself just looking at her this whole time with a stupid smile on my face.

"Maybe you could do something useful today?" she asked and even if she seemed to be calm now I could judge from her voice that eruption can happen at any moment. Though I kept staring, as nothing came to my mind that I could do to help. Best I could do was trying to pull her by her tail, granted that it won't just cut my muzzle.

"Okay," I answered. Despite the lack of ideas, I walked closer and wedged myself between her head and the branch. Leaning my back of the branch, I pushed Sonya's head away.

There was another crack and both of us fall to the ground. I got up first, Sonya was free and there was a large mark left in the wood from which was dripping dense crimson liquid. I frowned and wanted to inspect it but before I could do it, Sonya in all mighty ran at the branch which, already damaged, didn't stand her and broke in two. When all smaller shoots attached to the branch fall to the ground our way become clear as it was the end of thick bushes.

Before us was spreading, as far the fog allowed me to see, the forest. Dark, with thin but tall trees, the ground covered in numerous mosses, slowly rising to the mountain, forest. My companion was still dizzy after the hit and was now sitting, trying to come back to full consciousness, finally shaking her head and standing up. It reminded me of the situations from stories when someone hit something with its head and lost memory, nonsense but always an interesting concept.

Sonya finally stood up and looked around, her horn was covered in a deep crimson colour.

"You're bleeding!" I asked or stated, I wasn't sure, I jumped to her to help but she made a step back.

"Hold on for a second. Where am I supposed to bleed?" she asked. Maybe her confusion hadn't pass yet, and she couldn't feel the pain. With Sonya keeping her distance I couldn't see the wound by itself but judging from the dripping blood from the side of her blade it needed to be a big gash.

"From your..." horn? Wasn't it supposed to be a bone? But what was my experience with horns? Maybe they can even bleed being bare bone? But in that case, it would cause pain everytime she would use it and she was using it quite a lot. So maybe a place where the horn is attached to the head? No, now I was just stupid, just like fangs don't bite their own throat, that horn shouldn't be able to damage her head just by running into something! If it would work like that then any absol wouldn't survive its first month! "... head?" I said not sure anymore.

Sonya cooked her head a bit and quickly checked her head with the top side of her paw, not seeing any blood on it she glanced at me again losing some of her calm moods.

"There is blood on your horn," I said in my defence, so she checked her horn. Now her paw was in blood too, yet she repeated her look of annoyance.

"What?" I asked, did she blackout so much that she couldn't see this deep red colour on her pure white paw or it was about something different?

"I am not bleeding, there is no blood on my horn," she said. "I thought that was me who hit the tree with its head, did some part of it flew at you?"

_What?_

"Uh, no? No! For sure no," I disclaimed.

"No, or you just don't remember? It sometimes happens when you hit something with your head," said absol keeping her point.

I examined her horn once again very carefully, but I just saw what I saw before. Deep crimson colour, just with a difference that it stopped dripping on the ground. But it still wasn't her natural dark-blue, I was more than sure that it wasn't!

But really was I? In all this fog, I lost all sense of time and it could already be dusk or close to it. I may be tired, and my bad night vision could start to trick me.

"Maybe I am just tired," I suggested resigned.

"Most likely but it's not a place where we can walk being tired. Come one my hallucinating medic, let's find a place for a break," Sonya said choosing a way.

"Medic? What does that mean?" I asked, still following.

"It doesn't matter, now less talking more walking."


	9. Mist Walk

_The hell is inside of us, we drag it behind._

Somehow this one wayward thought intruded my mind and kept disturbing me from thinking about anything different.

We hadn't a break yet and I wasn't sure if Sonya really planed one. We just kept walking, over and over, and any passed place wasn't good enough to stay there. In addition to it: my vision didn't get better I would say that it got even worse. I had a feeling that everything was getting redder, crimson colour kept covering space out of the corner of my eye just do disappear when I tried to focus on it and appear again somewhere where I wasn't actually looking. Maybe I was really tired? But I didn't feel so, my paws hurt a bit from walking and spine felt heavy but I wasn't gasping for air and it wasn't the hardest effort of my life. My first training hunt trip was more exhausting, later ones with Serge, even more. They contained a lot of running, hiding, seeking and tracking being all the time rushed by the overjoyed umbreon, or a bunch of them. I never managed to outrun them and always was in the last position but I also didn't need to be first, I wasn't following hunger.

When our path disappeared in completely dark water of the lake, Sonya stopped and decided that here we could make a break, taking by herself a spot not to close to the water, between roots of the old tree which looked much more natural than the extremely endurable plants we met earlier. Or maybe was it one burned mark on the bark of the tree, that looked similar to those which jolteons could leave thundering the tree by mistake, was making these tree looking more natural for me.

Before laying down by myself I walked to the water and watered my mouth creating small disturbances on the calm water sheet that spread in every direction and with it, the fog above the lake backed off allowing me to see opposite bank.

That lake wasn't that big, I thought. I was about to drink some more but before I touched the water with my tongue I noticed small distribution similar to this I created a second ago but now was coming to me. I raised my head again and the shadow at the opposite bank also raised its head. Its eyes seemed to shine in dimly-red colour but the rest of the body stayed hidden. It rose on its back legs and speeded along the side of the lake bank, the fog returned and covered the shadow.

I kept staying in place, frozen, until I came to a realisation: it is going around the lake... for me.

In a wave of panic, I turned around, but slipped and fell into the lake in the loud splash. The water was cold and dark, I couldn't see but I felt the ground under my paws. I pushed as hard as I could and rocketed myself from the water as it appeared that it wasn't deep. Not wasting any more time I ran to the place where Sonya was lying.

"Something is coming!" I screamed at the sleeping absol just as I saw her, but she didn't move. I tapped her hard with the paw but instead of soft fur, my paw met bare tree bark. I blinked twice, the shape which I was talking to was only the tree's root and it wasn't even absol-like.

"Sonya!" I screamed spinning around but the only answer was a loud splash, close, too close to me, just where I was before. The instinct took a lead, I was running. Not knowing the way, not knowing where Sonya was, not knowing what was chasing me. I was running where my four limbs could take me, as fast they could take me. Like a chased prey I was zigzagging between trees, jumping above holes, scrambling through the overgrowth, trying to lose my hunter.

Something was still behind me, I could hear its heavy breathing, I could hear its two legs breaking twigs and I heard its barks. It was larger than me and larger than the absol was. Sometimes I felt it breathe at my neck, other times I thought I lost it but I still was running and I hoped that I will be able to run much longer. Tiredness was slowly exhausting me, my breath changed into a wheeze, paws become heavier and the path before me started to be blurry. I needed some sun, without it I was defenceless, weak as eevee and I hadn't a chance to really charge myself lately. I couldn't run anymore, even walking was a too big effort. I felt that I will throw my lungs out in every next step. With all the strength I had left, I threw myself between overgrow almost hugging the ground. I heard this coming, I stopped breathing at all.

It entered my view in full run, it was moving on two back legs only helping itself balancing with almost-to-the-ground front arms ended with long claws. It had crimson-red fur at its back but white at its belly and limbs. Its posture was stoop-shouldered, the head was canine, with big long mane at its head from which was pending single black horn, barely visible in the storm of fur.

Immediately it stopped few steps away from me, stood there motionless only breathing, making the dense fog to flow. Slowly moving its head, it scanned its surroundings and looked directly at me. A new wave of panic and adrenaline make me forget about my tiredness, but before I could jump to run again the lycanroc shot its head and glanced in another direction as if hearing a new sound from there. With a blood curdling howl, it sprinted into the direction of the new sound which I couldn't hear by myself.

For a long time, I stayed in place, staring where the lycanroc had disappeared, I was too scared to move. It could hear things I couldn't, It could run longer and faster than me and it was so mysterious what this creature was. I was even afraid to think too loud so it may find me. The adrenaline went off but I was still trying my hardness to stay alerted yet my eyes were slowly closing and it was harder and harder to lift my heavier with every moment eyelids.

I felt like I was falling. Falling into a lake of darkness without end. It was peaceful, this void was warm, comfortable. I kept slowly drifting through space without any effort until the ground came into my vision. The ground was deprived of any details, a flat smooth membrane softly bending under my paws. From the membrane was rising shape-less object, circulars knolls, slim lobes. Gaining new and new cracks and wrinkles they were step by step creating the environment.

"Oh, surprise, there is a forest," I commented as the shapes were shaped enough to allow me to guess what the really were. It wasn't coloured, everything around me was made of the same dark membrane, on the membrane, trees were hanging dark membrane leaves, the dark ground was covered with dark grass. Only the ground closest to my paws stayed unchanged and everywhere I moved the darkness was returning to its previous form. I hadn't any doubts, it was the forest from my repeating dream, yet this time a bit different. Firstly, I wasn't the main character of this a but it was an eevee nervously walking few steps ahead of me. The eevee also was made from the dark membrane and seemed to not seeing or ignoring me looking for something different. I followed closely behind him not being afraid to be noticed that the further the eevee went, the colder it was. The grass was becoming small razors, leaves changing into thorns but I kept following until the eevee suddenly stopped. Before him were multiple dark blades, needles and razors, each of them aimed straight into the eevee, creating giant bush of pain. I looked around finding that every other way was clear from sharp things.

"Maybe try going there?" I suggested to eevee pointing to the random direction. The eevee followed my guide and went where I pointed him to go, but we didn't go far when the situation repeated and we again stood before the wall of spikes and blades.

"To the right," I suggested, again and again, I listened yet the situation repeated.

"To the left,"

"Go right,"

"Left,"

"Right,"

"Right and right again,"

We stopped before next and still the same barrier but this time an eevee wasn't waiting for my command and he charged at the dangerous bush, somehow going between sharp branches and leaves he disappeared from my view. The branches rosed and started with fury smashing into a bush invader. I could feel narrow thorns pierce my back until banging into bones, retiring and going down again. The old wounds opened, reminding me forgotten pain.

There was a single flash, whiteness so strong that darkness immediately vanished, bushes were burned to nothingness, the forest disintegrates into dust and ashes.

This light illuminated from the eevee and stayed with me for the rest of my life, I was wearing it on my leaves and I keep it burning until it burns me too.

I snapped out from the dream as the cold wind blown into my ear, I changed position a bit to protect myself from the wind, my paws were wet but it wasn't raining.

I only walked into the bush and evolved.

I only walked in and that was all.

I don't remember anything.

It wasn't real.

I was staying in place until the light of morning sun gave me powered me and I was able to stand up again. The day made me more confident and I wasn't so scared of this lycanroc anymore, with the sun' rays I was capable of much more than a just short sprint, for example, I was capable for much longer and faster run.

I had to find Sonya and get out of this nightmare forest, was it always so foggy here? Looking back I couldn't see further than the tip of my tail! It was horribly similar to my dream, these trees and ground deprived of details, if a dark eevee would suddenly walk out of the fog, I would probably shit myself.

But where could Sonya be? And where was she when I had to run? Maybe we somehow missed each other? Or I missed her, I wasn't even sure if I returned to the right tree back then. Maybe I was lost from the time I went to drink? Fuck this fog, it was all its fault!

'Specific climate!'

'SPECIFIC CLIMATE!'

Shit, not the climate! It was almost impossible to find anything here, walking with closed eyes give the same effect as when walking with them open, I couldn't see anything. At least the sun's rays were strong enough to reach me here.

Where could an absol go? A lake? I was a bit afraid to return to the lake and I couldn't find any connection why absol had to be near the lake. Then maybe the mountain, there was one in this forest. Absols like mountains, or I thought they do. So, the mountain!

I didn't know which way the mountain were, so I kept walking for a long time and my only guide was a sun that I felt with my leaves, it's how I found the mountain, or the direction to where it was. It was blocking the sun so I assumed it was the shadow of the mountain. It was hard to guess, the forest was thick and I was losing a feeling of sun quite often but trusting my instinct I managed to choose a specific way to go instead of aimlessly wandering.

I finally found this black, cold and high wall of stone. The walk didn't take me long considering that I didn't expect to find it before nightfall and here surprise, walking since sunset I found it at noon. I may guess it was an hour but I forgot how long an hour is. Sonya said something about sixty minutes, yet I was able to count only to sixteen so, guess that I just won't bother myself with time counting.

Going alongside the mountainside I noticed similar marks of burns. It looked old, all this place looked old, as if it hadn't changed over many years, it was a bit of a depressing sight. Suddenly, I bumped into something, or two somethings, that grumbled and cursed.

"What the fuck?" Snorted the bumped thing, which appeared to be a quadruped black canine pokemon with fur covered in a few bone-like growths.

_Damn it, why I had so plant-related connections all the time? Did I really change that much with my type?_

"Hey isn't it the same weird thing we caught last time?" asked a second houndoom, but for me, both of them looked exactly the same.

"It's... similar, even smells similar but look, the eyes of this one are different and this one has white leaves," answered him his friend.

"Excuse me faggots, but did anyone ever smash your muzzles?" I threatened in full anger. "I am into females, go fuck yourselves instead of looking into my eyes!"

I caught both of pokemon off guard as they stood there completely stunned until one asked

"Should we burn him?"

"No! That would make us even more... you know, more than we already made ourselves!" answered him another.

"So what..."

"Hey faggots, come here, we are done!" yelled a houndoom who just walked out of the cave from the mountainside few steps behind two. This one was visibly old but still strong. "Who is it?" he added after he noticed me.

"I am Zar," I answered, a bit worried.

"That means no one. Goin, take your disabled brother and stop wasting time! You not only sleep during guard duty, but also snorted so loudly that I had to listen to it the entire time I was in the cave!" yelled again old houndoom, and quickly walked out of my view disappearing into the wood saying also something about a 'fucking echo'.

"Okay Gloim," mumbled Goin, and shot a short 'come' to the second houndoom before both of them followed their, what I assumed, leader.

Well, I was lucky. They really could have burned me there, but they didn't, so a wide smile crossed my mouth, yeah I would feel even better as Dark-type. Wasn't it their thing to threaten and not get any payback for it?

*Tsssk*

My ears shot up at the unexpected sound.

The barely noticeable sound was coming from the entrance that houndoom left, the more I was listening to it the more it sounded like a conversation, as if multiple hisses were creating words I couldn't understand. The sound was quiet and unclear, yet at the same time very attracting. It was nice to listen to it and it lured me inside of the dark and low tunnel. It could be nice to have some sort of light here, not depending only on ears and weird sounds. Yet it guided me and when my eyes adjusted to the darkness enough to allow me to see at least an outline of the walls I noticed that I was in a large grotto, almost completely filled with the water of the underground lake. The voice was coming from the sheet of the water but still wasn't making any more sense. I leaned forward over the water, which completely didn't smell like water, just to see my own reflection all lit up in white. My reflection looked at me with a considered face expression, I moved my face in left and right admiring my own reflection.

I looked cool with all these white features, a bit deprived of something natural. but still nice.

"Strange lake," I judged, but my voice was dubbed like an echo with the difference that it was coming straight from the mirror. I leaned even lower toward the water, concentrating on my reflection, which just like reflection should, mimicked me.

Suddenly, the stone that was supporting my front-paws gave against my weight, and I fell head first into the lake. My skull collided with the skull of a white leafeon, causing pain as if it was a real skull, but at the same time, I went through it still falling. It was a short jolt of pain as if I was on fire but immediately followed by the wave of cold.

"Uhh!" I grumbled at a sudden headache which wanted to rip my head apart. I found myself lying at the bank of the same underground lake, with the difference that the room now wasn't completely dark. It also wasn't lit up, I could just see everything as if the stone had become a source of light by itself. I slowly stood up, still fighting my slowly passing headache. I have had enough of this cave and I wanted to go outside. But before that, I checked one more time in the mirror, there was no reflection in the water. I touched the water and my paw met solid material, it was like ice but wasn't cold, it wasn't end of my worries, my paw was all white, my whole limb was white, every inch of my body was completely shiny white. I tried to brush or lick it off but it wasn't any dust or dye. It was my skin, my fur and my leaves, I was like the reflection.

"Three! I give three drops of life for these shoes that take you beyond the fifth sphere!" Screamed a voice from somewhere from outside of the cave, and as I stopped focusing on myself I heard multiple buzzes of different voices. It was all the hiss I heard earlier, but now it started to make sense, I could pick from it single words and understand sentences even if most of them weren't making any sense. What did 'shoes that take you beyond the fifth sphere' mean? And what were 'shoes'?

Going to the entrance I passed a furret, almost twice my height, but was crying, pushing its head into the stone and just like me it wasn't coloured normally. It had deep grey going into dark colour and for the moment I thought that I could see through him, as if he was partly transparent, showing his beating heart, swollen lungs covered in his skeleton. I quickly looked away and continued quickly walk toward the exit.

There was no forest before the exit, there was a huge crowd of every pokemon I knew or heard about and even more of them I completely didn't know, yet everyone was deprived of their colour, staying in greyscale colourisation. Those I heard earlier were staying closest to the cave entry, they were tall two-legged creatures with normal fur only at the top of their heads and the rest of their body was covered in something similar to very smooth fur but not connected directly with their body. It was most visible at the end of their top limb. They were all screaming at the crowd, wielding with stuff in their things that they had instead of a paw. I walked in the crowd trying my hardest to avoid being stomped, I quickly found out that I wasn't alone in this and there were also pokemon who tried to avoid being stomped like me. When I found the rhythm and direction of the crown it was much easier, like allowing the river flow to take you whenever it was flowing. I ended in the centre of the wide place before something that fitted Sonya's description of the house, with 'glass windows', a 'smoking cowl' and 'wooden façades'.

It was loud inside, someone was singing to the rhythm of screeches and rumbles, but was barely hearable in the squeeze of other voices and sounds. Most of the creatures here were these huge two-legged weirdly furred creatures, also everything inside seemed to be adapted to them.

I sit down and wondered aloud.

"What was in that underground lake that I have a trip like this?"

The worst thing was that it completely didn't feel like hallucinations but something much more real, and every time I was closing and opening my eyes my view was staying the same and any normal foggy forest didn't want to replace it.

"Hey, you! Such whiteness you have, don't you want to exchange some of it for this bottle of life?" screamed at me a female two legged creature with a 'bottle' in her limbs, who just left the moving crown of creatures that was passing next to the place.

"Bottle of life?" I repeated sceptically, even if I didn't know what was this oblong transparent thing, I wasn't so stupid that it would contain 'life'.

"Yeah, exactly, just one drink and you feel as if you would be alive again, I mean... temporary," spoke energetic creature.

"Fuck off, Margaret," said, from behind me, a spine-chilling harsh voice that sounded as if was energised by sparkling lighting, cracking at syllables and hissing at letters. Turning my head, I saw a shape familiar to jolteon but his colour was black and his sides were crossed by long yellow zigzag lines. However, despite the appearance of jolteon, he had a tail, a long leaf covered in orange fur that, closer to the end, was changing into a golden ring to finally end with deep blue diamond shaped tip. I heard wired jokes about side effects of an eeveelutions love triangle but to create such thing needed to happen unimaginable mess.

"Go away Part, I'm trying to sell something," Margaret replied angrily to jolteon, but he wasn't paying any more attention to her, instead he was looking at me with blank stare.

After a moment he snapped out and seeing that Margaret didn't leave, he growled and turned to walk away. I followed him. We weren't walking long when our environment become a deep and thick forest, very similar to the one I was with Sonya yet, different.

"Fascinating," said Part. Anyway, it was a weird name but I assumed that it fitted something like this freak. "Fascinating," he repeated.

"What is so fascinating?" I asked a bit irritated. Part stopped and turn to me, he seemed to be surprised to see me but I was more than sure that he noticed me following him.

"Your mind, so open and yet closed. If I would try, I could make you do whatever I want, yet I can't read it as I would like to, just as I am trying to, it behaves like dark-type mind, completely disappearing from my senses. You are quite a weirdo," he said in his cracking voice.

"You call me a weirdo? Did you see yourself?" I countered with my anger rising, this thing contained also espeon in itself and tried to read me!

"Who was your mother?" he suddenly asked and I felt as if some invisible heavy force pushed against my head.

"Myra," I answered unwittingly, my tongue was moving without my will and it took me a moment to realise that it was me who said it.

"No, no, no. A name is not very important, it can be changed very quickly. What species was she?" Part asked again.

"Flareon." I once again answered against my own will almost biting off my tongue. The pressure in my mind disappeared, Part sighted and looked somewhat poorer when he walked away.

"Resistant you are," he shot back to me. "Don't trade your whiteness, there is nothing more worth here than that."

"Where is here?!" I screamed angry and at the edge of crying, my mind was just abused, I was lost and confused. I had never before wanted to just return home as now.

"Void, oblivion, the world of dead, antimatter, call it whatever you want," Part answered as he was further and further. "These are just fancy names that doesn't mean anything."

"But I am alive!" I screamed at him.

"Maybe you didn't notice when you died?" Said the jolteon before he disappeared from my view in the forest.

"No! I am alive! Alive! Alive!" The world around me spun and I pushed back taking a deep breath. I was standing again in the cave at the bank of the underground lake. My head was all wet as I just pull it off the lake. I leaned back on the hard and cold stones trying just to breathe, I was back, I wasn't all white, the cave was dark and I was alive. Just horribly tired.

With blurry vision and a dizzy mind, helping myself by leaning against the wall, I made my way to the exit. Everything around was pulsing in red in the black night, trees, as if half transparent, were pumping blood through their roots and branches. The space around me seemed to be deprived of air, I was breathing heavily, gasping and still choking. I walked from tree to tree leaning against each of them, stumbling against roots, rapidly blinking, trying to clear my vision from the dark fog that appeared at the edge of my sight, and was covering more and more of the world. I hiccoughed, spewing the water from my mouth before me and finally taking one loud real breath. Staying in a straddle position and kept spewing, hiccoughing and burping until my breath regulated, returning almost to normal, then I sat down closed my eyes and rested for a bit, motionless in that position.

I opened my eyes. Looking up, the moon was barely visible through the trees, bare from leaves' crowd. I could hear repeating the sound of pacing approaching me from my left. I ignored the sound focusing only on being alive, funny how such a simple thing was hard for me right now, but my lungs screamed in pain with every breath and my heart was beating so hard that I could feel it in my ears. I felt pain, I was alive.

The twig cracked just next to me and I instinctively shot a glance at it. Not further than a paw reach from me was standing a lycanroc, seeing that I noticed it smiled. Feeling absolutely hopeless I smiled back.

_Fuck._

In a blink of the eye, I was on all fours, putting my hurting legs into effort again. With little chance that I would successfully run away, I sprinted ahead, but a moment later I was outrun and quadruped pokemon crossed my patch. I changed my course but it was faster again. My left front-limb shook and gave up under my weight making me fall to the ground with my chest. My impetus made me slid for short distance, too short to escape the lycanroc.

"Clumsy are we?" sounded the happy female predator's voice. No wonder that she was happy, I would be too if I would just find myself a night meal. Under the moon, everything tasted surprising better yet my parents weren't allowing me to eat at night saying that's unhealthy.

Well, at least I would be an unhealthy meal and maybe rip her ass apart tomorrow morning. But considering that I am half plant, the chances that I am unhealthy were quite low, damn it!

"Clumsy and not talkative," the lycanroc said, now just above my left ear.

"And what I should talk about? I got hunted. What, you expected me to do more? Maybe should I sing a song of how great hunter you are, dancing in the meantime, getting ready my tastes parts?! Did no one tell you that you shouldn't play with food?" I answered irritated and looking up. I noticed that it wasn't the same lycanroc, this one was fully quadruped, its fur was light brown and she had large tufts of brown fur extend from the sides of the head.

"Did you washed since yesterday or it's now when you are dirty?" I questioned but then saw much more differences, it couldn't be just water.

"Eh? I don't recall that I met some walking grass yesterday," she said sitting next to me, close enough to catch me in her teeth if I would suddenly jump to run again.

"Actually, I thought that I am more similar to fern. We have much more in common, the grass is always jealous about the sun and tries to smother other small plants around," I said creating a moment of awkward silence. The clouds in the sky got out of the sky by the wind showing the great platinum disc in its full glory, I wondered how many currants would Serge count on it.

"Shouldn't you be at least a bit scared?" she asked finally breaking the pause.

Yeah, I should be. She was just about to end my life and all that will be left from me will be a warm stinky brown pile at tomorrow. However, this thought was somehow distant to me, I just didn't feel like dying. Tired, yes, but not dying.

"That's an eeveelution, you won't get through his arrogance so easily," said something I couldn't see but needed to be behind sitting lycanroc.

"Arrogance?" I repeated, trying to see who said it.

"Yes, it's how your species used to be. Arrogant and annoying, but maybe I should feel lucky, thanks to it there are not too many eeveelutions around."

I finally managed to see who was talking when he stood next to my hunter, however, this one looked like a mix of her and the one I saw yesterday's night.

"I really don't have any willingness to discuss it with you," he said just as I opened my mouth to respond. "Let's just take him to the proud one."

Regardless of multiple expressions of my resistance and anticipation toward them, the grey lycan dragged me like a pup by the back of my neck causing a pain I made even worse trying to free myself. They weren't answering to any of my threats or pleas, the first one just had his full mouth and the second one was completely ignoring me in rising my anger. Maybe if I wasn't so tired then my attempt to escape would have a chance to succeed, but currently, I couldn't do anything more than just make their walk harder and make my neck hurt even more.

We stopped next to the lake, I assumed it was the same lake I saw earlier but at a different bank. I was tossed to the moist ground, I landed softly on the layer of fallen leaves and rolled on my belly but I hadn't a chance to stand up as grumpy stereotypical lycanroc put a paw on my back pushing me down, acting as if I would still have a strength to run or even stand.

_What had tired me so much? I hadn't done much._

"Is this the living compost you mentioned earlier?" spoke the male, following his sight to me, who these words were addressed. Next to the tree, was standing, or rather pitifully hanging on her horn, deeply inserted in the tree's bark, Sonya. She looked even messier than usual, her white colour disappeared completely under the leaves, fragments of bark, and mud covering her fur equally over every part of her figure. Her eyes were half open and it seemed that she was unconscious. She had a really bad day yesterday.

"It's for sure him, Laden, we hadn't smelt another leafeon there, also this one fits the description," instead of the absol, the light-brown lycanroc answered. From Sonya, only a quiet growl came.

"As if we would smelt him at all Kaestra, he has the same odour as grass," spat Zab, taking away his paw from my back and pacing around.

"Let's give them a moment, they won't be able to do much in this shape," suggested Kaestra, stopping by the second lycanroc's nervous movings. He wondered about it for a moment observing me and Sonya, checking if that what his (what I assumed) mate said was true before giving a short nod and wordlessly lied in a place where he could easily see both, me and the absol. Kaestra joined him curling next to him but opposite to Zab, she wasn't paying any attention to anything, closing her eyes.

Feeling a bit safer not having them just above my head, I lifted myself a bit and shuffled, trying to avoid making any too rushy movement. I moved to the tree with Sonya.

"Hey, how you feel?" I asked, but I could already see that she was not too well.

The "Ehhh," that I got as an answer only made me more confident about it, but I couldn't do anything for it right now without risk. Healing was a heavy effort, making it already being tired could damage me more than help her.

I examined her horn, it was so deep in the tree that the only part visible was the part close to her head.

_How did you manage to end up like that? Were you trying to cut a tree?_

I could always ask the pair of our trappers, but I felt that I would be again ignored. I guessed that they probably found her already like that, maybe I didn't know Sonya longer than two days, but she didn't seem to be the type who would miss her attack that much.

I decided to use as much time we had been given for rest and then I see what to do next. The good thing was that Sonya and I hadn't been eaten yet, that could mean that we are be needed for something, or lycanrocs liked fresh meat, but weren't hungry right now. But maybe it was something connected with that cave, I hoped not. I didn't want to return there, seeing transparent creatures and having my mind abused. It all looked so real, I really had a feeling that I walked there, that I touched and heard, but it had to be only a dream. Maybe a hallucination? And was it a hallucination that made Sonya attack the tree?

I noticed both of the lycanrocs approaching us.

"The rest has ended, now stay aware," spoke Zab, and took a place next to me, but to my surprise, facing the opposite direction. The second lycanroc took another flank next to Sonya and sat similarly, observing the area.

"What's going on?" I asked confused, it would still be stupid attacking his back, but it still wasn't how prisoners should be watched.

"The fog is raising and it carries weird thing, scary and strange things. We need to work together now," answered Kaestra, her voice wasn't as strong as before noticeably trembling.

"What if I won't," I asked, seeing like the fog was lazily flowing between trees toward us, it wasn't scary at all, fog like every other. This time lycanroc of the dust answered me.

"Then you will end like Retran, the fog will take you."


	10. The two

I turned around and tried to pull Sonya out of the trunk, the tree had a strong grip on her horn. I could feel her slowly moving in my way when I suddenly lost my gnaw on the tang of her scythe, my fangs painfully screeched against grey-blue bone and the impact made me fall on my back. My vision was covered by the fog that was close to the ground. I rolled to stand up yet before I pushed myself above, the mist left. I saw blue light shining through overwhelming whiteness. The light wasn't random, but clearly shaped into six round rings, that, imitating walking, were moving away from me. I knew those lights, I saw them too often to forget them.

"Wait! Hey, wait!" I screamed as I jumped on all four and skipped towards the lights of the walking umbreon. Now I could see him better, he was walking peacefully, not paying attention to his surrounding. When I was close, he turned the corner of the larger tree, disappearing from my view. I ran following him, but just there were no more visible lights. I spun around trying to find at least the pale of light but there was nothing.

"Serge!" I screamed, and my voice echoed through the completely silent forest, disappearing behind the white shroud. In this silence, my breath became noisy, as I was breathing heavily through my mouth, exhaling white swirls.

_When did it become so cold?_

The ground began to crack rapidly when all of the moisture turned slowly to ice. The ice was also growing along the trees, changing their leaves and branches into long icicles. My leaves and fur also covered in ice, not completely frozen, but with this thin layer.

"Ah, I found you!" resonated behind me. I faced the source of the words, which appeared to be an unnaturally oversized flareon staying high and proud.

"Sogot?" I asked unsurely.

"And who did you expect?" Sogot answered in his usual baritone. "Come on, the pack will love me when I return them their one and only leafeon."

"You were looking for me?" I asked again, surprised.

"Are you coming, or would you like to stay here; it's quite cold here" He only said, already walking away. Keeping my distance, I followed.

"Why are you so surprised? Maybe I don't like you, but I never wished anything like this to happen. Also, the safety of all the pack members is my responsibility, so I had to find you," he explained, seeing my hesitation.

"Sogot, that's not the way out of this forest. We are going straight toward the mountain," I stated stopping in place again noticing the familiar environment and feeling of emptiness these plants were radiating was only getting deeper this way, but my worry quickly faded away when the new appearance was seen walking out of the fog. Her cyan eyes, contrast by her fine lilac fur, locked with mine, making me freeze in place. The freeze was short as the familiar yet still unknown emotion rushed through my mind fogging it, refreshing and tensing my muscles, making my thoughts wild, unpredictable but also indecent. I recognised those long legs full of grace, wrapped tips of the slowly swinging split tail, high cheekbones that were making her oval eyes more aggressive and so tantalising.

"Cera," I whispered as I slowly approached her, not believing my eyes. Was it a dream? Because if yes, then I wanted to keep dreaming a bit longer.

She was looking at me with a judgmental look, staying still on the high ground. I couldn't resist, and from a slow walk, I jumped to her, to rub our cheeks to feel her warmth, almost missing that she opened her mouth. However, before she could say anything, I was just next to her. The wind blew away the fog, and with it, the appearance of Cera, Serge's light blinking behind the tree, and powerful posture of Sogot. I stood there with a tightened heart, seeing how my dream slowly fades away with all white mist showing me the dark entrance to the cave excavated in the even darker stone mountain with two peaks.

"Do you feel it? Power. It's coming from there."

"It feels bad, the pain, so sad, so wrong," I answered, I felt it, it was like the wind blowing in my face from the entrance. It wasn't touchable, it felt as if it was touching my mind directly trying to invade it with emotions and thoughts, but like a breeze against the shore, it couldn't do anything. "Retran, wasn't it?"

Leaning back against the tree was a lycanroc that yesterday had been chasing me, crossing her upper limbs, she was staring at the ground, but the fringe was covering her eyes.

"It's its power of distortion that slowly eats this world. It was calling for me, it looks for a chosen one who will take it and finish what was unfinished," she said, standing on all four and facing me. I gulped knowing what I had to face. Her face seemed to be never cursed by any thought, making the same powerful contrast to the way she was saying every word. "I allowed it inside, I wanted to be chosen and I was, I started to see! I started to hear!" she started screaming. "I was there and back! But then you appeared and all this power left me here blank and stupid on the cold ground, leaving only pain and sadness! Give it back!"

Almost instantly she leapt forward, with acceleration that made her outstretched claws whizz in the air. Depending on luck I swung to the left covering myself in my tail so she couldn't see my next move, the one I didn't manage to made as sharp talons ripped my leaf from the middle to the tip into three separate shreds. In a blink of the eye, I notice the second paw coming down straight on my face, without time to dodge I jumped forward. The claws didn't go through my throat but painfully slid by my cheek, luckily missing the eye. My forehead, with a loud crack, was slammed into her jowl, her head leapt back making her fall over her back, stopping her aggressive claw barrage. It took her a long moment to come back on her legs, yet I couldn't use it as I was dizzy from my headache that exploded in my head after impact.

I saw her heavy bleeding and spewing from her mouth, she probably bit her own tongue. This time, before the jump, she growled deeply swinging at me with the clawed paw. Using our difference in high I ducked under her attack and immediately threw myself at her in an attempt to bite, but I only harmless flew behind my foe.

Lycanroc, missing her attack on me, lost her balance and tripped, moving far from where I was aiming my attack. The tempo was fast, so I used this moment to take a breath before the rock-type got ready to fight again. She had a problem with breathing with a mouth full of blood, every deeper breath was probably painful too. She tried to attack me, now going from the bottom, I jumped up, avoiding her claws once again, but I didn't manage to avoid her teeth that closed on my left back leg, making me yelp in pain. I furiously bit anything I had in reach to get rid of her, my fangs grit on her ear and my claw went through her eye, only then did she let go of my leg.

I fell on the ground behind and spew her ear from my mouths, I felt that I couldn't stand on my ragged, bloody red, leg. It looked horrifying yet it wasn't so painful, guess that pain would come later when the adrenaline wore off. Panting and keeping my balance on my only three limbs, I turned to my foe. She covered her head in paws, whining silently while the weird liquid was coming down her front leg, glueing her fur together in disgusting curls. Knowing that she wasn't looking at me I turned and as fast my wounded leg allowed me, I tried to hobble to the first better bush to hide. Before I reached it, a strong wind blew, the fog thickened and darkened, from the entrance of the cave came loud gurgling sound, followed by new fumes coming out of the mountain that started to shape into something huge and serpentine. It wasn't a normal cloud, but also not as realistic illusion as I saw before, it was like a shadow made of smoke, long, with many outgrowths like a branch of thorns, and two brightly shining red orbs that were like eyes staring at me. The ground below it was covered in a thick layer of ice that was slowly spreading forward. I was standing in shock at the edge of the small field I was fighting, now too scared to move even if every part of me was screaming for me to run. Lycanroc noticed the strange creature too and finding new strength, she rushed into the forest. In the moment when Retran's paw crossed the edge of the field, from the centre of the mountain came another wave of gurgling and the serpentine shadow, with great acceleration, followed the lycanroc's tracks. When the shining red "eyes" of this thing only disappeared from my view, I snapped out of it and got into a run too. I had only one thought now, escape. Escape from this mountain, escape from this shadow, leave this forest far behind. From afar I could hear the powerful roar and a moment later, a much weaker scream of pain made me run faster. I stumbled over the pending roots and my damaged tail didn't manage to balance me when I fell on the ground and rolled two times. I raised my head and saw how the dark cloud, like a storming wave of water, was making its way in my direction. This time, fear squeezed out from me a panicked scream as there were no chances I could escape it now.

The grit on the back of my neck came even faster than I expected but it didn't rip my head from my body or even penetrate my skin. It actually lifted me on my paws almost throwing me forward.

"Don't stop!" I heard the familiar voice of Sonya as she pushed me to move even faster besides I was already within my limits. I felt if I had to spit out my lungs and the pain in my leg was becoming impossible to stand.

"I can't." My view was becoming dark and I missed completely what Sonya screamed.

_You can run, but you won't outrun me. You can fight, but you won't win against me. I am here, I am in this forest, and now I am in you._

I was stumbling more and more often until I really couldn't make it a single step further. In one moment I saw the way we were running, later the wet dirt, everything seemed so far away, everything became so quiet. Blue blur cornered by darkness, the flash of light, the clear night sky covered in stars, frozen bottom of a tree branch, wings, another sky, or was it the same one? White wings, white wings all over me. I could hear them flapping several times before the sound of hitting a rock and then again flapping, the view of the sky and down, below trees crowns, not frozen anymore. My eyes closed by themselves, sending me into the dream with a calm sky, fields of warm grass, chilling air and familiar faces.

* * *

Unpleasant light forced its way through my eyelids into my eyes making me snap out of the wonderland. As if following the light, pain struck, it was coming from every muscle in my body, even these I didn't know I possessed. I groaned loudly and tried to roll on my paws, then I found out how strange a position was I lying in. I felt that I was upside down and when I opened my eyes I found out that I was burrowed deep in a bush and all branches above me were broken. I must have fallen from above. It wasn't easy to get out of here, especially when every move caused me extra pain, however, my wounded leg, due my sleeping position, was completely numb feeling like useless log attached to my hip.

_How did I even get these wounds?_

My tail looked bad too, and was soaking in almost-transparent green liquid, half of it was pitifully hanging like a broken. but still attached to plant, branch. My tongue felt like a burned-to-ashes peace of wood as I was extremely thirsty, my breathing was terrible too. I listened to my environment, hoping to hear pleasantly splashing water nearby but my attempt was disturbed by returning blood circulation in my leg that brought the new wave of pain and suffering. A short yelp escaped my mouth as I tripped over and licked my leg until the pain was again sustainable. Then, to my thirstiness joined the hunger. But not this typical hunger which I could satisfy with some sun, instead it was a hunger sucking in my stomach and that was making my teeth itching, I needed to eat something real.

But what could I manage to catch in that shape? Even at full strength, my hunting skills were rather low.

I will catch what eeveelutions always hunt for, something smaller, weaker and defenceless. Maybe even something asleep or not even born? Like some egg.

My instincts were pushing me to hunt and I couldn't resist it, I was hungry and there had to be food for me somewhere. I sniffed around, whiffing a few different promising scents. The closer one was coming from a nearby tree, I hate climbing. The tree was easy to climb, with many wide branches which I could use and rest my damaged leg, slowly making my way up. Somewhere in the middle of the full tree height, I found my prey, three eggs in a dim brown colour. They were very easy to miss being similar to the tree in colour, but the scent of its owner was strong, whatever it was. I wasn't going to find out whose this scent was, I quickly broke the thin shell and licked the yellow goo. It wasn't tasty, but filling. I returned to the solid ground and started searching for some water.

 _What am I even doing here?_  I didn't recognise any part of the forest I was going through. Then how I get here? When I tried to remind myself of what I was doing yesterday, only blurs and headaches came into my mind, so I decided to leave it for later.

Going ahead in a supposedly random direction, I actually found water. It was like a big pond, probably the point where water was concentrating, dropping off the surrounding ground but it was more than enough. After a drink, I lied down in a bit higher fern that could prove me at least some protection and at the same time possible to still be in the sun's rays. Not forcing anything I allowed my body to heal. My muscles relaxed, and the pain in my leg became kind of numb, but it wouldn't be so easy to heal it fully.

Resting my head on my forepaws I tried to take a nap, but not letting my guard completely off, monitoring my surrounding with short moves of my ears making them look as if it was just another leaf of the fern, swinging in the weak gusts of wind.

The sun was not far above the horizon, but considering the current season, it was close to the horizon for the whole day and there will be less and less of it in close future. For sure that wasn't any time in the morning but also not evening, I needed to wake up past noon so I still had some of the day before the night. I spend it hiding and licking my injuries. When I felt a bit better I left the fern and washed my leg and tail in the water. It was cold, but still better than eventual infection, claws of ...

Emptiness filled my mind when I wanted to remember who did it to me, it was crazy. As if I knew it but couldn't really see it. But I would for sure recognise this pokemon when I see him..., or her, whatever. Drinking one more time, I wandered through the forest, trying to not use my injured leg as much as it was possible. I hadn't any idea where I was going, but staying in place also didn't make more sense to me. Seeing a destroyed bush, I assumed that I returned to the place I woke up, I felt sorry for the bush I destroyed, but I couldn't do much to actually help it, plants were already slowing down their lives, preparing for the cold that had to come, during which they weren't able to grow new parts or repairing broken ones. I just hoped it didn't die completely. However, on the ground was many more broken branches than a single bush could lose. Some of them were even of a size that certainly needed to be tree's branches. Looking up, I saw a kind of 'path' of the destroyed tree's crown. Following the trail with my view, I saw part of a white feathered wing, the rest of the creature stayed hidden from my eyes, by the trunk.

 _Maybe it's dead?_  I wondered, going around the tree to check if from the opposite side I would be able to see what it was.

Here, the overgrow was much higher, but I managed to stand on some rock and see what was on the tree. Tangled in the naked branches was a creature, that I even knew!

"Aaa... Soj... Soyna... Setia?" I somehow couldn't remind myself her name. Gah, why did thinking hurt so much, it felt as if my brain was still sleeping and out of my use for now. "HEY!" I finally screamed but there was no reaction. I growled and yelled for a few more times as my worry was growing. There was no way I could climb this tree, it was tall and thin, it was even amazing that it could stand the dark-type's weight.

 _How can I wake up her?_  I considered that she was just unconscious and not reacting to my voice. I am adapted to the forest, even pokemon that walked next to me could miss me, unless they were already looking or know about me, but the con of it was being hard to notice even trying to be noticed. Reminding how during my naps on the clearing Se… Set? Sar? Fuck, this one I forgot too? What's wrong with me today.

_Brain. Start. Working._

Anyway, reminded how I sounded like I couldn't be very effective in waking someone up from the distance like this, I had to try different methods which I actually never thought would be helpful. Using my ears to feel the wind, as my tail wasn't fully operational yet, I gathered some saliva in my mouth and with force split it in the air. The foreseen blow of wind cared wet present directly in absol's ear. Or where I thought her ear was. The reaction was immediate, she shook her head, disturbing the balance in which she was and, probably unaware of her position, she simply fell to the ground.

Proud of my ability, that multiple times helped me in winning a crazy umbreon's contest, I padded to the grounded absol.

"Hi! I really really missed you around… is that a wing?" I exclaimed seeing her standing up from the ground. "Or even a pair of wings?" I exclaimed even more confused seeing also another one. She looked at herself with the same surprised face I had. In the meantime, I noticed that wings weren't only one addition though still most noticeable. Every of her blade become much longer and more dangerous looking, there was a huge gain in her fur and I personally thought that she looked greater with them now. There was also some difference in size, as earlier, it was a just slight difference due to species we were, now I felt worse than I felt next to Sogot.

Did my species really have to be 'smaller'? I really didn't feel good around pokemon much larger than me. In my pack, I wasn't the tallest too, but as an eevee, I was taller than most of the other eevees.

"Hi," the absol finally answered and approached me, before I could even think, my instincts made me jump back.

Calm down, Zar! I thought to myself, I know this pokemon. For real, what's wrong with me today?

The absol stopped in place with a mixed expression on her face.

"Hey, don't be scared. It's still me, Sonya," she spoke politely. My mind, for a moment, flashed images of few last days run before my eyes. How could I have forgotten? Sonya, an absol who hadn't really trusted me and I hadn't trusted her, the one I helped, and now she was helping me.

Great, now she thinks that I am scared of her. Okay, maybe a little. but who wouldn't, seeing his friend or rather ally in completely different shape. I quickly scanned myself, to check if I had any new addition, but I was still just a typical white-currently-more-brown-then-green coloured common leafeon.

"I am okay," I answered. "Just a little... surprised."

"With this look? Yeah, I was surprised too when it happened for the first time," she said sitting down, visibly avoiding approaching me again. "There is nothing to be afraid of, it will pass with time."

"So it's not permanent?"

"No, it isn't. I thought it would be. Are you aware of evolution stones?" she queried, I sat just next to her, trying to show her that I was not afraid of her, however, her new height at this distance made me feel even worse. Just one of these claws could split me in two, and there were no chances for luck, not mentioning this double scythe-horn...

"You know that you are just making this worse?" she spoke.

"What?"

"I just saw you look at me and your eyes grew wider and wider. I get that's natural for you to avoid things like these, but I can be like that for more than a day, so it would be easier if you would just calm down," she said calmly, I wasn't sure if she was so calm anytime before.

"So what you were saying about those stones?" I returned to the conversation.

"I was asking if you are aware of what they are?" she repeated.

"Yeah, one of my friend's family use them to evolve in one type, as they consider this specific evolution to be better than any other," I answered, remembering long corridors of glowing pink stones.

"Isn't that a bit racist, don't you think?"

"What is 'racist'?" I asked, hearing the new term.

"Nothing that you really should know, you rather won't meet it in the wild. It's when one group think that they're better than another, but also used when two... creatures disagree with each other, so one calls another racist to assert its right, generally this word doesn't have real meaning, it once had, now it's like another curse that you throw around trying to achieve something," she explained, but I already judged that knowing this won't be useful, so I didn't really focus on it, however, her hesitation in saying 'creatures' didn't really fit her speech. "But back to the evolution stone, to achieve this form something similar is needed, I had it back in the Elderly forest, but one tricky canine stole this mega stone from me. But even with this stone, form changing happens very randomly."

"So many new names, and I already had a headache, so 'Elderly' is the name of the forest we were in? I know names of places only where my pack is. Yet I don't get this 'randomly happening'," I asked. "You are also weirdly nice, I mean, you had a moment of being nice, but now something changed, right?"

"Yeah, it changed. Let me explain step by step. This, 'power-up' is happening when my life is in danger and I mean really really in danger, that it's almost impossible for me to survive. However yesterday, in the forest I had very hard time, worse than any before yet this evolution wasn't happening. Until I didn't go back into deepest of the dark wood in an attempt to find you. I think it's destiny, you have some goal and I have to help you in it."

"I don't believe in destiny," I answered having a feeling that Sonya hit something in her head, was it really still 'her', or it was changing her more than she was aware of?

"You should, it has guided all my life. Just by curiosity, what you and your packmates call your eeveelution's valley by?" she asked.

"Twelve Peaks Valley, from White Slopes to Endless Sands, also called Miracles."

"Would you like to hear what outsiders call it? Creep's Hole. Most of the pokemon consider your species as cowards and weaklings that need to group to mean something."

"So that was the end of nice Sonya? Guess we are back to normal," I summed up, thinking that she asked me about it just to turn it into a joke.

"Oh no, you have my trust and my honour laid in keeping you safe, I feel great in this other form, so strong and powerful that if I have to change into it more often by just being around than I will, also my belief in destiny and et cetera. Let's leave the talk about our absol culture for later. Going by the Hangman's path wasn't a good idea, but we prevailed but now we are going by some much more populated regions, so I thought that it would be better to tell you that you won't find a lot of empathy, but a hatred rising the closer we get to the Creep... I mean Twelve Peaks, let me be the guide!" She said with excitement, which I couldn't guess from where she took, things became weird, Sonya changed, I changed, a world I thought I knew appeared to be different.

My companion behaved as if there was nothing to worry about, but I still saw a serpentine shadow somewhere out of the corner of my eye every time I was remembering this mountain of dark stone, the underground pond and the white form of me, things I saw being 'there'. Trees pumping real blood, all these creatures were dead on this another side, it was their blood trees were pumping. I saw those who are carried, I somehow went to death land and returned and now Sonya was blurring something about destiny. I hoped my destiny won't be like I thought now, please don't be like it, I am just going back to my pack.

"So, what you in your opinion was 'that'," I asked, thinking about the Shadow.

"What?"

"The thing we were running from."

"A hungry pair of lycanrocs, I guess," she answered, it wasn't what I expected to hear. Did it mean that only I saw 'that'?

No, I was fighting with Retran, who also saw it, but she just like me was 'there' and back. Maybe returning from "this" world wasn't allowed and this Shadow tried to take us both back.

"So what exactly did you do after we split up?" I questioned curiously.

"You mean after you went to take a drink from the lake? I heard something on the opposite bank, so I went to check it out, halfway there I heard a splash of water from the place where you were drinking, so I thought that you'd slipped or something. When I returned, all that left was a scent, which led me until I meet red-furred lycanroc, you might hear about that night form of that pokemon. We fought with each other. It was weird, she didn't really know how to fight, it was visible that she wasn't experienced, yet there was a lot of luck on her side during this fight. A few times I mistook the fog with her and missed a lot of hits."

"Until you didn't, and slammed the tree with your horn?" I interject.

"Oh, you knew about that?" she asked in an embarrassment tone, I could imagine how her ears would go down if they were at least a little longer than her fur.

"That's how I found you, but continue."

"So when I woke up, without my horn in the tree, I saw two different lycanrocs cursing at the fog, I guessed that they were about to eat me so I fought with them. However, these two were experts, I couldn't win this, so I escaped. If they only knew more than just two moves then they would have had me. But my escape wasn't so good, I got lost multiple times, the fog was so dense that I didn't see my paws. Then I thought to find you, because you know, you are a grass type, so you know the way in the forest, I don't know why looking for you had to be easier than looking for the way out, but a light appeared. The light had the form of a white leafeon running as if Death himself was chasing him, so I followed. In one moment, the leafeon stumbled and the light disappeared. That was when I noticed you lying on the ground, we were at the edge of the forest and you know the rest. My mega evolution happened and I carried you with me."

"We were flying?" I asked, raising my eyebrows.

"No, I can't actually fly, these wings just allow me to make my jumps longer, but it wasn't real flight," she said. In the same moment, a short flash of light covered her, her shape rapidly shortening to an absol, and after the moment there was Sonya in a shape I knew. She glanced at herself and exhaled heavy breath.

"Ugh, I expected to keep it for a bit longer, back to this grey, bland and typical appearance," she grumbled.

"So, you were running from lycanroc until you saw some light radiating leafeon and followed him?" I saw that leafeon too when I looked into the underground pound, who was he? There was something exciting in it, I finally found a second leafeon! Though I hadn't a chance to talk with him, it was still pleasuring that I wasn't the only one.

"Don't mention that I escaped, again," she threatened, suddenly changing her voice to the angry sounds.

"Wha... why?" I asked.

"It's why... That's the reason why I was kicked out from my pack, it's dishonouring and," she stopped in the stream of words. "Why am I even trying to explain it, a creature like yourself won't get it. You are an eeveelution, running away is typical for your kind."

I was silent for a moment, but I felt like something was building in me and that I couldn't leave this without an answer.

"Why you care about that band of idiots?" I shot.

"What!?" Sonya exploded with anger, stopping in her way and glaring at me.

"Isn't running away and surviving a better thing to do they stay and face an 'honourable' death? Maybe because of thinking like that your species is so hard to meet? I bet that that pack doesn't have more than ten absols, while mine is counting hundreds!"

Sonya didn't respond immediately, and kept glaring at me for a long while.

"Why I didn't eat you when we just met, I was even hungry then," she finally spoke, turning away continuing the walk. "I wasn't born an eevee so I can't behave like one, both of us have this small world in which we must live."

"Why don't you change your world?" I joined her on the walk, being side by side.

"With you? No, you are too small for me," she said, my mind seemed to stop working for a moment before I realised what I just suggested. I almost invited her to my pack and that would mean...

"No, no no! You took it wrong, I have someone already! I mean, you are attractive and all, but no in that way."

She turned to me, raising her left brow.

"What I wanted to say, was to convince you to stop caring about pokemon that won't care for you," I exhaled, being already so embarrassed and confused that gathering word for a sentence was becoming a problem.

"That's good, this would be very one-sided if it comes to satisfaction, also you are going to die in the next seven, max nine, years while I won't be even middle-aged," she reminded me about the unfairness of life, but also raised a new question.

"How old are you?"

"Why are you asking?" she countered.

"No real reason."

"Ladies shouldn't be asked for their age," she said, putting it aside.

"Who?" I asked, confused, and her small smirk disappeared from her face. Who was 'Ladies', was it some position in absol rank?

"Almost two hundred moons," she answered, avoiding the second question. Now I regret that I never paid attention to Serge or Cyrus when they were talking about moons and stars, maybe then I would be able to calculate how many seasons are in two hundred moons.

"Oh, okay," I only said.

The weather got worse in the evening, thick clouds covered the sky, and the setting sun lit them from below, making them looks like the sea of flames before it disappeared completely, leaving us in dark. From now, ashen coloured clouds were dropping tiny flakes of snow that were disappearing in contact with the ground. It was still too warm. Back in the pack everyone needed to be busy with preparation for the cold time, burying food in the ground that had a chance to stand for longer edible or marking hideouts of potential preys to hunt them later. Guessing, I would have to collect some dry straw to warm up a few dens. It reminded me that I still needed to dig my own den after that heavy rain.

Would it mean that am a leafeon without a place to be? Theoretically, I could now dig a den whenever I wanted and make it my home. Though it wouldn't make any sense, why would I want to live so far away from everyone I knew? I would feel very lonely and isolated, and I wouldn't live like that too long. Chances on surviving alone were quite low, maybe during sun season, I would manage to live somehow normally using the forest overgrow to feed and camouflage myself, but staying in one place for longer creates the risk to meet some predator. Now, when we were moving almost all the time we hadn't to even worry about the tracks we left that much, even if someone found it, we will be already day or two ahead. We would need to be very unlucky to be spotted by a pokemon who was actually hunting, hungry and in size and strength that could consider us as food. Considering that it happened yesterday, next time could be very far ahead.

"How you feel with others outside of your pack of eeveelutions?" Sonya broke the silence.

"What you mean?" I asked back.  _Why did it interest her so suddenly?_

"If you met someone from another pack, then would you be friendly, or immediately enemies, fighting for dominance and territory?" she expanded her query.

"Generally 'my' pack is, in reality, eighteen packs-"- _was I remembering it correctly?-_ "-sharing the ground. So I think that we would be fine, we don't have in common to hurt other members of our species unless it goes to fighting for leadership. Why'd you ask?"

The answer for me was a loud growl of absol's empty stomach.

"Oh right, there is time to eat something!" she exclaimed happily smiling, revealing her long white fangs that looked not less sharp than her claws.


	11. CH11 Type and Species, life of meanings

Dark-types, they were always fascinating and full of wonders. Every type somehow affects the pokemon in its behaviour, but this certain one was going much deeper than others. Maybe if someone was like Sonya, their whole life a dark-type, and their personality were melded with their type from the beginning, that changes the typing caused weren't so visible. Knowing a pokemon before he went into the dark was marking a line between true personality, and what was visible 'outside', showed to the others in your environment. Though there are always needed specific attributes to evolve into umbreon, and evolution was making these attribute even stronger, there was always some unchanged piece inside. A soul, life force, spirit whatever, I am not the one who decides how this piece should be considered. For me, it was a mix of chemicals reactions, but whatever came out from this piece it needed to go through the evolved part and being expressed... well, like a typical dark type would express, happiness was dimed, jokes offensive (though I never really mind these kinds of jokes, I even liked them) and bad emotions easily overcame good ones. Words seemed not to weight anything and could be adjusted to the user's needs, the life of umbreons in the pack never was easy. They weren't made for it, rather, for living in small isolated groups far away from anybody. They were supposed to be evil and good at the same time. Their ability to grow the smallest worries in deep depression and a closed character was always a very troublesome combination.

Sonya wasn't an umbreon, she was absol, a dark-type from birth. Attributes didn't matter, life choices didn't matter, whatever she would do, she would still be the same dark-type absol as she used to be, even in this winged, oversized and armoured in more blades than deepest glaceon's hollows had icicles, form. Just like her, the rest of her entire species were subordinated to the same rules of being dark-type. Everyone with the same weaknesses and strengths, look and somehow proud but rude and grumpy attitude. If you are not as good as others at being dark-type, than you can't try to be good at something else. Just continue with being worse than everyone.

I thought about what happened to Sonya, anyways it sounds, she didn't fit her species. Yep, she was trying, but it was only trying. No one can do something just by trying, it needed to come from inside, be natural and smooth. Trying, again and again, could eventually make her take this nature, but it seemed that she has some anti-talent, as it didn't work yet.

What I had more to say? Serge was just a much better dark-type, so Sonya looked unconvincing and artificial to me. Or was I just thinking about nonsense? Because how could one dark-type be more dark-typed than another? Maybe I just spend to much time with them? Or was I right and it could work for me too? Like: somewhere in this world was more leafeoned leafeon than I was? Someone greener and more grassy? Like that light shining leafeon from yesterday? I should learn new abilities to be more of a leafeon than I am now! But what should I be like? More direct like a flareon or energised like a jolteon? How was I supposed to be like that? It would be much easier to ask someone about it, someone who may know the answer, best if it would be a leafeon too.

Would an absol be allowed to enter my pack? Alone, for sure not. With an eeveelution friend? If he would be from my pack then maybe, stranger, rather no. It could be seen as a trick. But with a little luck we would be allowed, under a watch of some escort, but still. We should at least try.

It was late at night, I stayed still, pretending to be a plant while Sonyia went hunting. My leaves were quickly adjusting to the environment colour, replacing shades of green with browns and yellows, however, the bottom part stayed white, as it always was. The white colour was easy to hide, it would be much worse if it was unnaturally coloured on the top side. I didn't like this colourisation, I looked faded, rotten and withered, even when I felt good.

Yet it was better to look like this, especially now when I wasn't in my safety home and stay hidden could keep me out of trouble. If Sonya was hunting now, then other pokemon would be too. I hoped that she wouldn't catch any eeveelution, it wouldn't be only horrible to watch, but also the plan of using short would lose any chance to succeed.

The forest wasn't completely silent, cold gusts of wind from time to time were whizzing between almost naked tree branches, silent rustles, slight and random moves of the poor overgrown or changing shades. They were reminding me that I wasn't alone. Even if these pokemon were probably small, and from the very end of the whole food chain, their presence was keeping me highly alerted, intently listening, trying to imagine trials they were walking depending on the sounds I was hearing. The darkness of the night hid everything from my view, besides the closest environment and shapes of bigger objects.

I napped, I didn't know how long I was asleep, but it still was dark. Rhythmic steps awoke me, they were closing in my direction. From the sound, I judged that it was a quadrupled and it could be Sonya, her large paws made a specific sound of something much bigger than she was, but they also weren't filled with heaviness. However I expected more from her, even I knew that steps should be sporadic, so for other listeners, they wouldn't make any sense. But maybe she didn't find it necessary, the night was her dominion. I couldn't see her, but I heard that she should be now visible to me, or she would be during the day. Only after a closer look, I found some moving shadow that could be somehow familiar to Absol.

"Boo," whispered the voice straight into my ear, at the same time pinning me to the ground with a heavy paw, preventing my sudden jump. She giggled and lied next to me.

"I thought that I would melt with the environment better," I hissed, still with a nerve in my voice.

"You were, but those moving ears demasked you, with that white colour they seem to emit its light," she said. I completely forgot that my ears also have the white bottom, which was its front, and I was just moving them in all direction, thinking that I was invisible putting them down only during the nap.

"Well, now it is better," Sonya said when my ears went down from embarrassment, but I kept them this way acting as if it was planned. She was laying so close to me, that from her mouth I could smell the odour of food, the hunt must have succeeded.

"Did you find anything interesting around?" I asked, keeping my voice low.

"Hmm, not much, from tracks and scents I can say that there is no pokemon we should be afraid of in the area, it's filled with pokemon that are too weak to live in any other better place than this. It's annoying, I like to catch something in the size of a meal, not running after niblets," she whispered back. "However places like this have their predators too, from the tracks it's an ekans or something similar, the track wasn't clean, also I always find it hard to recognise marks of something that doesn't have limbs. Though they shouldn't be a real danger, however, it would be a pity if some poison type would bite you. Had you ever experience with poison?"

"Yeah, when umbreon are nervous than on its fur appear some poison, I once breathed in one scent," I remembered the event from Serge's den.

"And how did you feel later? Did you feel confused or have a headache?" she inquired.

"I passed out for at least a day, I am not sure, I don't remember most of it, my friends were rescuing me" I answered honestly.

"For at least a day after just smelling it? Well, you are supposed to be vulnerable to the poison, but that can mean that one bite could be your last." I couldn't see her face, but I guessed that my answer worried her. I couldn't decide what I was thinking about her. Was she already my friend, or was she with me just because of her promise or was there even a third reason? Sometimes she was friendly, tempting with her shape and nice words, other times it seemed that she wanted to kill me, and even other times she wasn't caring at all.

"One moment you seem to care, another moment you treat me as if you would like to just leave me. What's with all these sudden changes?" I questioned, irritated and was immediate silences by a paw, as I hadn't lowered my voice this time. "Sorry, but what is the point of this all bipolar personality?" I whispered as I was only able to.

"Bipolar?" she frowned.

"Yes bipolar, it's very hard to recognise when I have to deal with grumpy and angry Agaar or with the bit nicer Sonya," I said.

"Oh, so that's how you see this? Don't worry, I am not crazy." she pushed back.

"You know that wasn't what I meant!" I said, and she sighed taking a while to look.

"Would you be able to say why you helped me for the first time? You could have left me there, but you healed me instead, not knowing what I will do when I get my strength back. Then you helped me for a second, third and fourth time, you shamed me multiple times."

"Shamed you multiple times?! Sorry that I saved your life!" I tried to whisper but ended with some kind of pitched hiss.

"Getting help from the weaker pokemon is a shame, it means that you are not able to defend on your own, but I am only helping you get back so I can get my pride back! Also, there are too many weird things happening since our first meeting to let you go alone now."

"Still, I can't understand why you can't be just honest."

"Because it's the way I used to be." She spat, and rested her head on the ground, not facing me, visibly wanted to quit this conversation. However I was now even more sure of my theory, she didn't fit her type. It wasn't something rare, eeveelutions also sometimes chose wrongly or had evolved unplanned, I was an example, though I had never planned to become leafeon.

"When I saw you wounded and dying I didn't think what you would be able to do when I heal you, I was lost and alone so instinct guided me and I helped," I said, nuzzling her friendly.

I wanted to lay my trust in her, not be afraid, to be left behind or betrayed when the occasion strike. She was opening herself only a little bit, not enough to allow me to call ourselves truly friends.

"Instincts don't work like that, they would order you to end me, eat or be eaten. Ever heard about that?" she answer back.

"I heard but. . . do you know the taste of blackberry in the sunny morning?" I asked, suddenly changing the theme. I hoped to knock the thought out of her.

"N... no, what kind of question is that?"

"It is bitter, you swirl your tongue and your whole body is shocked by spasm, you regret that you tried, that the oval shape and deep colour made you eat it. But just as the sensation passes, you take another one to feel the same once again, and you know what? It's absolutely the same, third, fifth, sixteenth, I can't count to a higher number but they are all the same, bitter and unsavoury. However, you still take another one from the spreading bush and eat it with enjoyment. You know that you can look for sweet presentable fruits that are nearby but you stay and keep eating. Do you know this feeling?" I said, staring into the darkness before me.

"No, I don't eat plants, I prefer meat," she said.

You fucking dumb shit, you are my blackberry!

I sighted. I somehow felt suddenly tired.

"That's your instincts, I am a grass-type and we see life a bit differently. It's not blood and flesh you see, heart beating or breath you hear, even the sun's ray can be a life. If one ends, only sadness stays. You are not connected, so you don't see it this way, every type has its core that change depends on species,"

"The wounds I got there were made by a grass-types, how would you explain it? Why do you think that you can know something about it?"

"I lived all my life with a bunch of creatures that are one big mix of types, each of them lives in its small world it created, not aware of the worlds others created. No matter how long would I stay with my umbreon or espeon friend, I won't become them, but I become aware that my point of view is just one of many. The grass-types you met hadn't a chance to learn a different point of view, and knew only one that they were and probably are living," I actually guessed, I didn't know why they behaved like that, maybe I wasn't fitting my type because I was cursed by a culture of my pack? "How was it in your group?"

She lifted her head from her paws and sighed heavily.

"You are a good and brave eeveelution Zar, but you won't console me," she said with a tired voice. "We have different nature, mine is to defend my past with claws and fangs, so stop pushing."

"Brave?" I mumbled, not believing.

"Yes, it's not something common to get near absol on your own not forced will. I wasn't born yesterday, I know the opinions about my species and I live with it. We don't even tolerate ourselves, so why others would tolerate us? It doesn't matter. You should sleep, the night won't be long and when the sun rises, that is your watch."

I hadn't anything more to say, I wasn't brave enough to risk, and with a feeling of loss, I placed myself in comfortable position trying to hide the white parts of my leaves, also on my ears, I tried to sleep.

* * *

It felt like a blink of the eye when Sonya woke me up with a strong jolt, I didn't even yawn before she curled up and close her eyes.

_Why was the ground more comfortable every morning than at any evening?_

I stood up and shook myself, getting an aggressive growl from an absol in response, but she wasn't motivated enough to do more. I forgot about the dew I had on myself, and with which I splashed her. Giving her some space, I walked away to stretch. Then I checked the area, Sonya chose a really good spot, we were hidden almost from every direction from the view, but also from the stronger wind by the slight depression in the terrain.

How long would Sonya need to sleep? What was I supposed to do in the meantime? I couldn't just sit in place and wait. Or I could and wouldn't mind, but I hadn't a willingness to laze around now.

I slowly paced forward in an irregular circle around our hiding spot, finding the scent of a pokemon I heard in the night. Despite my earlier guessing, they were some distance away and I was unnecessarily worried about them, they wouldn't notice me even if I wasn't camouflaged. Yet again, I was surprised how good my hearing was.

Living in a pack I didn't need to depend on it too often.

However, even if I had fun wandering around listening to surrounding checking my hearing from the different distances, after doing it half of the sun's way through the sky it bored me completely. I returned to our temporary hiding and waited until Sonya woke up. Moreover, there were no signs that she would wake up anytime soon, so I helped her a little by 'not trying to be silent'. I spun around trying to catch some wind in my tail so it could make a whizzing sound, with the damaged tail it wasn't as easy as before, but I succeed a few times. It was a long time, but I finally noticed a slight movement in the absol.

"Oh! You finally awaken!" I exclaimed loudly, imitating surprise.

"Fuck," she mumbled silently, heavily breathing out the air and opening her eyes, but she stayed laying not even lifting her head from the comfortable embrace of her front paws.

"Come on, time to get up!" I walked to her and nudged her, accidentally leaving a brown mark of my pads on her white fur. She didn't notice.

"Mhm," she purred, but stayed motionless on the ground, and I felt that she was getting close to sleep again.

_Dark types and their mornings in the middle of the day..._

I nudged her a few more times, drawing a strange figure on her flank, I didn't know what it was even supposed to be, but it ended as clumsily made orbs set in an 'S' figure.

"Okay! Stop it! I'll get up!" barked Sonya, getting up, I was about to place another dirty mark on her, but due to the movement, my paw went through the all already made orbs, connecting them in a serpentine line.

Sonya made her daily stretches and rubbed her scythe on the nearby tree, grumbling something about the lack of some hard rock. I didn't like the damage done to the tree bark, but something was telling me that arguing with her about it wouldn't be a good idea right now. The atmosphere around the absol was tensed in incomprehensible irritation. Maybe I should let her sleep a little more?

After some more of Sonya's private morning needs, we were on the journey again, accompanied only by the loud, unmasked yawns of the dark type and sounds of the windy forest.

My morning energy happened to pass out, lowering my focus and making the environment less important to me. Besides being noon, today, as usual during this season, the sun was small and weak, too weak to power me up for more than short snap out from time to time. Sonya also stayed tired, keeping her head and tail low, guiding peacefully and slowly. I caught myself each time I snapped out from the brainless walk that my eyes kept following one certain hypnotising point before me.

What am I thinking about? But my imagination was already playing tricks on me, behaving like a completely independent creature returning and mixing the views of today and yesterday's white-winged... beauty. To my surprise, it quickly convinced me that dreaming and remember couldn't hurt, but nicely pass some time. However, the second part of me didn't want these images, wanted to bury them deep somewhere at the back of my mind. Was I so easy? Just one smile, one word, one look was enough to fill my mind? But I wasn't so desperate! Or was my instinct telling me that I am and should try to use every, even the less noticeable, trace that someone gave me some attention? Maybe I was just wishing for it?

But I saw her yesterday, in this different look and it was beautiful and only blind could say differently. The aggressive sharp blades, the slickness of the long fur, proud glow of white and this surrounding chilling aura.

_Wasn't it an act of betrayal on Cera?_

But when did I laid my loyalty in Cera? Or was it closer to jolteon Navia? Maybe if I couldn't feel freely next to them, then maybe none of them? Why was it so hard?

I stumbled upon the rock, snapping out, I looked at Sonya, straight in her eyes as she turned her head. She only raised her eyebrow and turned away. She was much more awake now than she was this morning, or the time that she considered as the morning. She hesitated for a moment with choosing the way, but continued forward. Above the trees, I could see that we were slowly going into a mountain range already covered in white snow, but not completely, the mountains looked scratched by giant claws, there were places where the grey rock was too steep-up for the snow to lay on them.

"So, what are you doing in moments like this when there is nothing to do?" I asked, as I couldn't just walk without busying my mind with something, and to stop her yawns. They were making me yawn too. "You said that you wander quite a lot, you need to somehow fill your time."

Before answering, Sonya shook her head, correcting the fringe that kept covering her eye, and sped the walk up to a jog.

"I am thinking," she said.

"About?" I asked again after she didn't continue.

"Many things." Again, short answer.

"Wow, that proud to think about many things," I taunted, irritated.

"I wonder how you were able to lose yourself so much, as to end so far away from the place last known to you," Sonya said. "I haven't had a moment lately to think about it, but do you even know how long it has been since you were in your home last time?"

It all was weird, like my memories were covered by fog, faces unclear, I wasn't sure if I remember them, or just remember that I had to remember.

Would my home just be my imagination? No, that was a ridiculous idea, even Sonya confirmed that she knows the place I was describing, so it had to exist, so it had to be my goal, so it had to be my home.

"I, I never thought that more than one day could have passed," I said.

"It isn't possible to do such a distance in one day, if it would be, then we already would reach the destination, instead, we still have some of the roads ahead."

"Is it so far?" I grumbled.

"Yes and no, it is not so far away thanks to going through the hangman's forest, but the road isn't easy." Something was telling me that 'easy' wasn't describing correctly what was ahead. "You already saw the mountains range ahead? You can call it thirteen peaks if you want to add it to your Twelve-whatever-named-home. To the south, there is a mountain pass, and behind it, there is a small pack of eeveelutions I told you about. However, on the opposite side of the mountains are huge ruins of what once was a city. You know what the city is?"

"No, I have no idea," I answered truthfully.

"A concentration of humans, with a concrete ground and high buildings made of glass, but now in ruins," Sonya explained and I nodded, it still wasn't clear to me what 'concrete', 'ruin' or 'glass' is, but Sonya commonly says words without a meaning, and doesn't explain them, even asked.

"So how it supposed to make our walk longer?" I asked.

"It's a long story..."

"Then say it, we have a lot of time before we get there," I cut her off, before she could put the subject aside.

"Eh, okay. So, it wasn't as long ago as it may look. Besides the human's globalisation, this one city was very distinct from any other. Some say that's because of the distance, others that's because this city was different from any other. People use electricity as a power for most of their devices, not all but most. In this place, it got replaced by some secret energy similar to the kind dark-types use for their powers," I was listening to her, trying to somehow get along and guess all new terms she was throwing at me and to glue together all this information in some way reasonable, but her words were entering my mind through one ear and leaving it with another. How could any pokemon living in the wilderness understand it? Sonya, however, without any bother if she was giving any sense to me, continued speaking about burning liquid inside of metallic rolling things, complicated "buildings", "shops", "equality" and "clothes". It was kind of stupid, who would need all of this, what was the reason?

"How you know all of this?" I asked when her story become nothing more than mentioning more and more mystic elements about the alternative evil world, times of the end of the world and more common for dramas, stuff. She was making it more and more unbelievable and imagined, like a fairy tale.

"Don't ask, it's the past," she snapped suddenly, cutting her monologue and getting in her 'don't annoy me or you would regret it' state.

"Why are you avoiding it so much? I am not asking about anything sensitive or suggest you cry about it now, I just would like to learn something about you," I said.

"The past is dead, it's what faded and won't come. There is no sense in talking about it," she barked, getting angry. I was surprised by her sudden change of mood, what was the thing she had to hide? She was behaving as if this information would make the sky fall. It wasn't me who banished her from her pack. Besides, she was talking about it peacefully earlier. Would it be then something before the packed event? That would mean that she only joined it for some time and the real feelings were placed somewhere elsewhere. Maybe it wasn't anything big and only her dark type of nature made her grow it into something problematic. "Doesn't matter, forget about it," she added, after a moment.

But how I could forget about the past? What were we without it? Only fallen leaves carried by the wind of time, aimlessly spread and pushed through the world. The past couldn't change the wind, but could give us meaning, could become the tree of the fallen leaves, could become a benchmark of our life and show the way we are going or what leaves are we. It is what makes us who we are, creating our personality, gives meaning to the places, to the roots. Life without a past is like life without a part of your soul, every progress lays in the past, repeating it, again and again, every time with better effect. Like learning to walk, who would try to walk if they didn't know that someone already walks? Who would try to eat if no one never before tried to eat? There is always the option to wait for the accident that makes you do some progress, but the past is much better. Whatever happened to Sonya in the past can happen again in the future, if she forgets she can repeat it, maybe now it would be even worse?

I tightened my mouth from the anger, I was proud of every piece of my past and for some reason, I felt that Sonya's meant a lot too.

I shook my head and left it for later, maybe it just wasn't the right time for it.

I followed the absol silently, looking into the dirt and grass below my paws. My mind was somewhere far away from me, in my home. I thought about the new den I needed to build. I will build it differently now, not in the middle but somewhere on sidelines, closer to the river or other water. The entrance will be hidden between the roots of the willow trees, so it would be protected from water. Willows are crazy and drink a lot of water, they usually grow on swamps, its leaves are small, so they allow me to catch some sun, but also provide some shade if it gets too hot. I would need to dig between the tree's roots, creating sensible rooms, but at the same not cause damage to the tree. Later, I would gather some flat rocks to lay. as a path from the entrance, so I wouldn't be taking all the mud inside every time I would come back. I would need to find something I could warm my den up with. Leaves and grass dry off with time, becoming useless, and I am too lazy to replace it with some new ones every few days. I may use some flareon or umbreon fur, but it was always a problem gathering it, and it would be irritating for a few weeks to smell strangers in my den. Also, the fur is very light so it would be flying around with every move. Besides that, I thought that after sleeping in the fur layer I would wake up all covered in it.

Maybe if I dig a bit deeper, made a layer of fur and then cover it with rocks and sand, then it would work? Oh, and I would need a lot of golden-white sand from the lagoon, rough dirt isn't very nice to lay on. If I already want so many things in my new den, then maybe I should try to make more than just one room. But what would be the use of them? One for sleeping, this one needs to be the warmest place of the den. The second one would be for...? Maybe also for sleeping? Somewhere closer to the entrance where it would be a bit colder in the hot days of the sun season. I always hated waking up in heat, as my previous den was so small that it heated up very quickly in the morning. I would need to have a lot of stones in that room so it would stay colder for longer. What about a third one? I felt that three is somehow a fair number of rooms but I hadn't an idea what could I do there.

Though I wasn't sure if it was possible, but maybe with some help? I usually help Cyrus with healing, but from time to time there were wounds I couldn't heal just in one moment, there was always a problem with eeveelutions with wounds like that. I needed to go to their dens one by one in my free time, or rather be dragged to them by this sylveon. If I had a place where I could 'store' eeveelutions to heal, it would be much easier. It would be even possible to heal two or three of them at the same time! The problem was that a room that could house three eeveelutions plus me and still have some space so everyone would feel comfortable required a lot of work and was beyond my possibilities. I didn't know how to warm up such huge space, as I rather thought about using it in colder seasons or how to make a ceiling that wouldn't fall down, but let's consider that Serge would help me and he knew such things, then there was the problem with the pack leader, who won't allow me to have such a big den.

At the memory of Sogot, I felt lucky that I didn't return to the pack so fast. If I remember correctly there was the punishment I had to do, but I simply forgot.

I shook my head once again. I had a problem with focus today. Leaving my worries for later, I made a step forward, to find out that we finally got to the mountain ridge, we were standing in the last line of trees and before us was only a large and dark tunnel, that was like a large worm penetrating the mountain inside out. Through the tunnel, I could see a dim light covered by the smoke that seemed to be inside of the mountain. It was oddly familiar to something, but I had never been here before, maybe just the mountain were similar to the types I used to see around the pack.

"Before we go any further, I need to go for a while," said Sonya, making an ashamed grimace. "Don't go anywhere, and don't go into this mountain without me, it's dangerous!"

"Number one or two?" I asked.

"Fuck off, you don't need to know," she spat, and without a word, walked away, to a distance she considered I wouldn't be able to hear her and I wished it would be the distance I couldn't hear her.

I tried to busy my mind on something other than hearing Sonya, and the first thing I looked at was the round and regular entrance of the cave with the light on the second end. It was weirdly fascinating, it was going up and down like a tiny yellow flame, sometimes it was getting stronger and bigger, other times I was losing it with my sight. The light was so absorbing and mind filling, I felt somehow happy by just looking at it.

I was disturbed by the change of taste in my mouth, my tongue was invaded by nice, warm and a bit metallic taste. I licked my mouth and nose and found even more of this taste. I checked with my paw and now I was sure. I was nosebleeding. It wasn't for the first time, but it also didn't happen too often, maybe only closely after evolution.

I used the leaf on my forehead and inserted it into the bleeding nose hole, trying to stop the blood, unfortunately too deep. The tickling sensation turned into a sneeze that I tried to stop by burrowing my nose into my chest, but it didn't help and the sneeze came out. If I already looked terrible by not having enough time to fully heal my leaves with missing plates and fur so messed that my mom would burn it all and made me wait until it grows back, that now from the chest through whole bottom and the longest leaf on the forehead, I was covered in the dots of blood. My closest friends wouldn't recognise me in the state like this, I was just like a living nightmare. Only real cuts and wounds could make me look even worse.

With irritation and a curse, I put my leaf in my nose again, but now more carefully. I couldn't allow myself to bleed out and die here, it would the most stupid way to die I'd heard about. Would it be considered suicide if I bled out by the weak vein in my nose?

I waited until I stopped bleeding, before glancing at the flame again. It was so inviting.

I will just take a closer look, only a little closer. What was the difference if I would stand here or a few steps closer to the light?

I stepped forward into the dusk of the tunnel, the smell of the fumes increased and mixed with the smell of blood I had still in my nose, creating a disgusting combination of organic decomposing smoke and something I couldn't identify, but was kind of sweet. The leaves absorbed the smoke too, giving me a bit more information about what the air contained. Most of it was what left after burned wood, but some of it was new, I wasn't sure if this thing ever existed in nature.

I concentrated on the dim light at the second end of the way and tried to limit my breathing, depending mostly on the leaves through which I could filter the air. The ground here was hard, made of concentrated tiny gravel, not so hard like the rock, but also not soft. There were sharp irregular cracks from time to time, but the limited light didn't allow me to see more detail and the further inside I was, the less of light I had.

Great place for a trap. Those who enter the tunnel are on the open sight coming from the light side while those who wait inside are hidden in the dusk, and they don't even need to be dark-types, it could be any type hidden here. Before eyes adjust to the dark there was enough time for an ambush and the victim would never know what happened.

I shut my imagination down, these thoughts were making the hair on my back to stand up. I would be so doomed if something like that would happen. I could dodge some attack or answer with something simple, but this scenario wasn't giving me any chances of success, even screaming wouldn't do because who would help me? I was alone now.

At first, I thought it was just a very tight exit, but after a moment my last doubts disappeared. The light wasn't an exit, it was a reflection. Orthogonal reflection like a floating sheet of water was reflecting light from the entrance I used. I could see myself in it, my white parts were slightly shining with the light. I needed to admit that I looked surprisingly good with all these damaged leaves, a slight smile I was trying to keep on my face and slightly gleaming with light. Like one of my imagination of heroes of the stories. With the visible sights of tiredness that affected the look, but didn't affect the spirit. But the look was all I could share with my imagination of the mighty eeveelution. What was I doing? Why did this reflection make me worried so much? Was it because I looked so different than I used to? That I didn't used to see myself like that? With dirt in my fur, with darkened eyes, leaves out of the form. I had luck, all over this time, since I fell into the river I was living on the luck. Every day I was closer to death than I realised, I was improvising. Trying to grasp everything that was giving me a chance to come back home. Now I could see it in the reflection.

The changes had begun. I was changing, every day I was further from what I used to be. How much would I change before reaching my home? Would it be my home anymore?

I can't go back in time, the Zar that was taken by the river will stay here in the wilderness, the question is who will return? Would my friends even recognise me?

I closed my eyes, trying to get rid of the dark thoughts. I was, am and will be Zar, the heat, ardour and cinder in green appearance. Whatever I would return to it always would be me.

_Even like that?_

I opened my eyes looking straight into the blue and green, brown and grey eyes of the leafeon that was all covered in white. Its fur was white, his skin was white, only the eyes were showing a different colour. My colours, from times before lightly brown layer covered my eyes. Before my tail was a long leaf and when my fur was brown. Before evolution, they had more detail back then, back then my eyes were light blue on the edges turning into light grey in the middle to end as weakly visible green in the middle, with few small brown dots in the left one. Some called it blue-khaki, others just as grey colours. But I left them without the name, for me, there was no such colour, no scheme that could describe them. There were mine, one and original.

It was always so complicated, as an eevee, I always believed I was different than everyone and every mark that was making me, at last, a little different was becoming my hidden obsession. Few single dark hairs on the back, few yellow on the sides and the eyes. The hardest question was: what makes me different and what's only my wish. I wanted to keep track of my personality, I didn't want to become arrogant or considered myself above others, but the question was raising questions, I lived the world of doubts, what part of me was me, what was just temporary though. When adults have two personalities it doesn't surprise anyone, one for strangers, one for friends or my mate, but when I started to have multiple faces still as a pup, how I know which one was my real one? Maybe I learned just to act. Was I the only one who seeks the truth? Or am I the only one who hadn't found it yet? What did it mean to be Zar?

_What did it mean to be anyone?_

When you are one of many with the same stuff, it's easy to become someone else and to be someone. When you are one and original you see many roads before you and are lost in wonders which one you should follow. Maybe you already decided wrongly and are on the wrong road?

It was all turning to the one simple question, the question everyone heard about once. What's the meaning of life? Is it death? Reproduction? Fighting and survival? Was I just a continuation of those who were lost and hoped that the future would bring them answers? Just forward with hope that something finally happens?

"What's it means to live? What does life mean?" I asked my reflection, I didn't expect an answer, I just felt touched by the moment.

I looked once again in my white reflection, deprived of a leafeon's colourisation. It was the leafeon Sonya saw in the dark forest, it was the one I saw in the water on the underground. Who is, or was he? Is it alive or just a ghost?

"Am I dead again? Have I to find a way back again?" I asked again the reflection. Maybe it was some of my image of me? Of what I was before leafeon?

It was all a great irony, me, always wanting to be different evolving into the type no one was before, making my life harder. But how it even happened that this way of evolution never was used before in my pack? There was a lot of eevees and eeveelutions and no one ever evolved that way but me. I wasn't trying, my actions were supposed to push me into fire-type, eventually, dark-type due to staying long at night, but parents were always helping me in my way to flareon, a creature I once considered as the best.

The cave seemed to light up, the ground tightened and became smooth, from the rock pended bushy grass and I suddenly found myself in the forest. I sat down as my head seemed to spin and I was losing the balance, I felt confused.

The white leafeon become more real, he sat close next to me. He was warm and his fur was nice. He wasn't bothered that I was all dirty and that his fur can be dirtied too.

"You like to talk with yourself, don't you," the leafeon said, and his voice rang through the forest and my mind like an echo. The voice was nice and friendly, encouraging to talk.

"Yeah, am I only one?" I asked and caught myself on this that I was only asking, again and again.

"I don't know, maybe. You think that others also need to face their worries, they just picture them differently. You are split, you can't agree with yourself, doubt in things you think and do. You would like to say that having worries makes you smart, above those who only follow others, but at the same time, you wonder if considering yourself as smart isn't stupid because those who are stupid think that only their way of thinking is right. But all of it turns into one simple question everyone heard at least once. What's the meaning of life? You know the answer and answering yourself for another time won't make you feel better about it. Just start using your definitions!" the white leafeon said, and his leaf tail rapidly flopped in the air.

"It's hard, it's always easier to say other's what they should do…"

"This talk takes you anywhere, but not where you want to go. What is worrying you so much about your definition of the meaning of life? There are millions of creatures that want to know that from the thousands of years. What holds you so much for giving them an answer?"

"There were so many before me, it's not possible that I say the sentence unspoken, word undiscovered or the thought no one thought about earlier. I am the generation of repeat, I was born when the pack was formed and achieved limits of its expansion, I couldn't see its beginning or end. I have to just live and even if I found something new, I would be shouted down by others who build this world. Shouted down by the past that still is alive and still has something to say. In weird times I have to live, where truth and lies mix with each other, when 'old' is creating the 'new' and when unit seems to mean a lot and nothing at the same time."

"What's the meaning of life?" repeated the white leafeon

"Even if I say it, what is the point of it? My definition is empty, it answers without the answer! Everyone likes when it's simple, when the definition doesn't leave any space for thinking or interpretation. Everyone wants to just hear and immediately know. I never was the saddest or happiest creature alive, so what can I know, what my definition can stand for? The biggest tragedy I survived was losing my favourite stick or having to eat something I don't like. Who would even listen to someone like that? How can I say anything about life to someone who lost someone loved? I am just not allowed to do it!"

"No you are not, but standards are made by minds like yours. Does someone need to set the normality in a place, who can do it better who never was on the edge? You will be criticised and hated, but time forgives you. When emotions fall down and only cold calculation will be visible, you find out you had right. So, what is life?"

I hesitated, this wasn't happening. All of this was just my imagination, the white leafeon couldn't be me. Or I was him?

"Stop wondering about it, my white friend is coming for us, but her heart is black, this what is black can be easily lit up if you know how to start the light. But before she finds you, what is life? Do you remember what you found out?"

I remembered, how I could forget? It was hope in hopeless words, definitions generally are known but unspoken. But how could I be sure that I say anything that never was spoken? But even if, fuck it, my mouths my words. I took the air in my mouths.

"Life. It is the river that flows at every time of the day, it's the sun that rises and shines for everyone, it's the blue or cloudy sky, it's the green grass you walk on and the meat you have in your mouth. It's what makes you natural and what makes you a continuation of those who were before you. Life is the path of chances and those who we meet, our opportunities. We come and go to this world without anything, the point is to leave a mark that others can follow. Then death is an only short moment of pain and life is eternal. The meaning of life? There is no meaning until you make some."


End file.
